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  The security office was tucked down a side hall off the left spoke, the Sears wing, like something shameful to be kept out of sight. The mall’s administrative offices sat across the hall from us, and as I slowed down, Curtis Quigley, director of mall operations, the grand poo-bah in charge of making sure the retail space stayed rented, tenants’ issues got resolved, customers streamed into Fernglen, and the mall made beaucoup bucks for its investors, pushed through the glass door. He was clearly headed for the security office, but when he spotted me, he changed direction. Uh-oh. He hurried toward me with that “I’m holding a quarter between my cheeks” walk that Joel could imitate to great comic effect.

  In his early fifties, I guessed, Curtis Quigley affected European-style suits tailored to hug his tall, narrow frame, and regimental ties. Sandy blond hair was slicked back from his forehead and tucked behind his ears, brushing his collar. He always wore starched white shirts with French cuffs and had a set of cufflinks for every day of the week. Today being Monday, oval cat’s eye stones glinted at his wrist.

  “Officer Ferris.” Quigley summoned me with an uplifted hand.

  I glided up to him and got off the Segway.

  “What’s this I hear about a reptile invasion?” Quigley spoke with a faint British accent; rumor had it he’d picked it up during a college semester in London and hung onto it ever after, believing it made him sound cosmopolitan.

  “It’s not an invasion,” I said. “The reptiles from the Herpes Hut are gone and—”

  He scrunched his eyes closed as if in pain. “I wish you wouldn’t call it that. So déclassé.”

  Repressing the urge to roll my eyes, I said, “Sorry. The Herpetology Hut. For all we know, the thieves took the reptiles with them.” We could always hope. Maybe Dartagnan the Bearded Dragon was wilier than his brethren and had escaped from the bandits. Yeah, I liked that hypothesis. It would make my life much easier if there weren’t reptiles loose in—

  “OhsweetJesusit’sasnake! Killitkillitkillitkillit!”

  The garbled screech came from behind me and around the corner. “Excuse me,” I said to Quigley, and darted back the way I’d come, feeling the jolt of every step in my stupid knee. I rounded the corner to see two elderly women I recognized as dedicated mall walkers slamming their outsized purses down on the tile floor. Wham! Wham! I didn’t know what they had in their bags, but it sounded like maybe a toaster and a ten-pound dumbbell.

  “Ladies!” I said, as a plump woman in pink reared back, preparing to whack her purse down again. “What’s the problem?” I surreptitiously scanned the floor nearby but didn’t spot a flattened reptile. However . . . was that a tail peeking out from behind the concrete urn dripping English ivy? The tail twitched and slithered farther behind the urn. I moved so my body blocked the women’s view.

  “A snake!” the rounder one in the pink velour tracksuit said. She had improbable red hair and big-framed glasses like Dustin Hoffman wore in Tootsie. “I’m pretty sure it was a rattler.” She nodded for emphasis.

  “Don’t be silly, Pearl; it was just a little garter snake or some such,” the taller woman said. “If it isn’t just like you to overreact.”

  “Like you weren’t just as scared as I was!” Pearl replied hotly, looking like she might take her handbag to her walking buddy.

  It took me five minutes to calm them and explain the situation. When I suggested Kiefer might be offering rewards to people who found and returned his reptiles unharmed, they got all excited and went to round up some of their friends for a snake hunt. I took a deep breath and blew it out forcefully, checking behind the urn—the snake had made good its escape—before returning to the security office. Curtis Quigley was gone—thank goodness—but I walked smack into Captain Woskowicz.

  At least six-two, with bulging muscles I suspected came from steroids, a shaved head, and a lumpy nose, Woskowicz decked his uniform with enough epaulettes, badges, and medals to be mistaken for a Middle Eastern dictator or the head of a South American junta. None of them were military medals or insignia I recognized; they looked like he’d found them in Cracker Jack boxes. He had the personality and paranoia to go with the look. He rattled a box of breath mints in one meaty paw.

  “Ferris,” he barked. “Why haven’t you given me a report on the break-in? Quigley was here wanting to know the details.”

  “I was just coming to fill you in,” I said. I didn’t add the “sir” I knew he expected. In my book, you got a “sir” or “ma’am” until you proved you didn’t deserve it; Woskowicz had supplied that proof within thirty minutes of my signing on at Fernglen.

  “Well, I’m sure a military hotshot like you, a commando or special forces killer or whatever you call yourself, could have this wrapped up in no time,” he sneered. He dumped half a dozen Tic Tacs straight from the container into his mouth and crunched down on them.

  “I was with the security police,” I told him for the nine thousandth time. Woskowicz had never been a sworn officer of any description—military, city police, sheriff’s deputy—so he’d had it in for me ever since I got hired on after my convalescence and medical retirement from the air force.

  “Well, you’re not a real cop anymore, are you? You’re a mall cop like the rest of us. So get on the horn to the Vernonville PD”—he jerked his thumb toward the phone—“and get a patrolman out here to make a report. We’ll need it for insurance purposes.” He stomped back toward his office where he spent most of the day playing computer poker, I suspected, and guzzling from the bottle of Maker’s Mark I’d seen once in his lowest desk drawer.

  “I already called them,” Joel said as soon as Woskowicz was out of earshot. “Although I know you could investigate as good as they could. Better. Just look how you figured out what was going on at the Hat Factory.”

  “Thanks.” I smiled and sank into the rolling chair across from his desk. Joel was our newest hire, an eager twenty-three-year-old with curly brown hair, puppy-dog eyes, and residual baby fat padding his large frame. He managed to make the security officer uniform we all wore—crisp white shirt with insignia, black slacks, and black “Smokey the Bear” type hat—look rumpled and comfortable instead of stiff and official. He had, for some reason, decided to hero-worship me just a little bit, although I was less than ten years his senior. I had to admit that it was gratifying, but a little embarrassing, as well. Lord knows, I was no hero, not with a bum knee that kept me from getting a job with any of the eighteen police departments I’d applied to, and not with the nightmares from that last firefight that kept haunting me. I massaged my knee for a moment, then stood. “Guess I’d better get back on snake patrol.”

  Joel grinned, digging dimples into his chubby cheeks. A smear of cream cheese glistened on his chin. “I’ll let you know when the Vernonville cop shows up.”

  “Great. You missed a spot,” I said, pointing at my chin, and left as he reached for a napkin.

  Although there were still ten minutes until official mall opening time, the place felt busier than usual with Kiefer and a herd of his employees and pals, armed with long-handled nets, combing through the planters looking for escaped merchandise, and the usual morning walkers—moms with strollers and the geriatric contingent—getting in on the act. Word had apparently spread. When I bumped into him in the Nordstrom wing, Kiefer said they’d recovered eight animals already. His burnished mahogany face shone with hope. “Maybe we’ll have ’em all rounded up before lunch.”

  And maybe I’d win the lottery. “Great,” I said. “Agatha?”

  “Not yet,” he said, flipping his dreads over his shoulder. “You wouldn’t think it’d be so easy for a fifteen-foot snake to disappear, would you?”

  A piercing scream cut through our conversation. I raised my brows. “Sounds like maybe someone found her,” I said. “I’ll let you know.” Giving Kiefer a two-fingered salute, I turned the Segway and purred down the hall toward the sound.

  This was getting old. There was enough screaming going on at Fernglen this morning t
o make me think I’d wandered into a haunted house attraction or teen slasher flick by mistake. Why did a gecko or garter snake elicit so much fear? Maybe, I decided, because it was out of context in a mall, unexpected. If you were gardening or hiking through a state forest, you’d be half thinking you might see a lizard or snake, so it wouldn’t startle you as much. At the mall, the scariest thing you expected to see was the total on your credit card receipt.

  Following the continued screeching, I hooked a sharp left into the Dillard’s wing. A young woman with a stroller stood halfway down the hall, arm outstretched and finger pointed rigidly at Diamanté’s display window. Her mouth yawned wide as she screamed, the sound changing to a gasping attempt at words when she saw me approaching. “It’s . . . it’s . . . it’s . . .” she huffed.

  “It’s nothing to be afraid of, ma’am,” I said in my most comforting voice. A peek in the stroller showed me an infant in head-to-toe pink sleeping through her mommy’s hysteria. “It’s harmless. Just a—” I swiveled to look in the window, hoping to be able to say, “just an iguana” or “just a corn snake.”

  But it wasn’t a corn snake or an iguana or even Agatha. It wasn’t a reptile at all. It was a man. A naked man. A completely naked, completely dead man.

  Two

  I got the woman to stop screaming by telling her she’d scare the baby, radioed Joel to tell him we had a “potato” (our code word for a really, really bad situation) at Diamanté, and asked him to call the Vernonville PD—again. “The situation’s contained and there’s no threat,” I said so he wouldn’t prod the Vernonville cops into sending the SWAT guys, “but they’ll want to send a detective.” Maybe four or five. And a crime scene team. And at least a sergeant, if not a lieutenant.

  “Roger,” Joel said. “What’ve you got, EJ?”

  I sighed, making a mental note to talk to him about radio discipline. “A potato,” I emphasized. “A hot potato.”

  “Aah, you don’t want to say on the radio.” His voice conveyed his belated comprehension. “Do you want Tracy or Harold?”

  They were the other two Fernglen officers on duty this morning. “Send them both,” I said. I’d put them on crowd control when they arrived, have them block off the whole wing. The store owners would whine, but it couldn’t be helped. “And you’d better tell Woskowicz.”

  I studied the scene in the window more carefully after scanning the floor in front of it for footprints or evidence of any kind. Nothing. Diamanté was an upscale clothing boutique, and the display featured a pool scene meant to show off the latest in cruise swimwear. Mannequins wore bikinis that cost more than a week’s pay, a shimmer of blue cellophane represented the water, and the naked man sat on a webbed lounger, his head slumped toward his right shoulder. Wiry gray and black hairs matted his chest and sprouted in ones and twos along his shoulders and upper arms. Sunglasses covered his eyes but did nothing to hide the bullet hole dead center in his forehead. He was posed so his left arm lay along the arm of the chair and his hand cupped a pink acrylic glass with a tiny cocktail umbrella poking out. I didn’t see any other injuries or a gun. Noting the lack of blood in the display, I took a few photos and then turned back to the witness.

  No more than twenty-two or -three, she sat stiffly on the bench, hands clasped in her lap, gaze fastened on the baby. She wore low-cut jeans, a yellow tank top layered over a lime green one, and orange Crocs. I introduced myself and got a whispered “Gina Kissell” in return.

  “That’s a darling baby,” I said, hoping to set her at ease. “What’s her name?”

  “Kaycee,” she said. She pushed the stroller back and forth with one foot.

  “How old?”

  “Two months tomorrow.” Gina looked up at me, and a faint smile flickered around her lips before disappearing when her gaze fell on the Diamanté window. “Is that man really dead?”

  “Yes,” I said.

  “Was he . . . murdered?” Horror fought with fascination in her voice.

  Undoubtedly. I didn’t see any way he could have shot himself, disposed of the gun, and wiped up any spilled blood before dying in the lounger. “There’ll be an investigation,” I said. “Can you tell me what happened?”

  “I don’t know,” she said, alarmed.

  “How did you come to discover the body?” I clarified.

  “Oh. Well, my mother’s been after me to lose some weight—it’s so hard after a baby, even though I only gained twenty-one pounds with the pregnancy—and so I’ve been walking here three times a week. Usually I come with Dawn, my sister-in-law, but she wasn’t feeling well this morning.” Gina twisted a tendril of straight black hair around her forefinger. “So, anyway, I brought Kaycee, and we hadn’t done one whole loop when I noticed . . .” She pointed at the store window. “At first, I thought it was a joke, you know, someone putting a naked mannequin in the window for a laugh. But then, when I looked again, I saw that it wasn’t . . . that he didn’t . . .” She stuttered to a stop.

  “It’s okay,” I said, patting her shoulder. “Did you see anyone?”

  “Just other walkers,” she said.

  “Near here?”

  “No, out in the main hall. There wasn’t anyone here but me and Kaycee. Can I go?”

  “Not yet,” I said. The homicide detectives would want to interview her when they arrived. I didn’t tell Gina, but she could well be here until lunchtime. Baby Kaycee let out a squawk, and Gina bent to pick her up as the other two security officers on the day shift came around the corner.

  I asked Tracy to make sure no one came into the wing. She nodded and headed off a couple of shop employees. I looked at my watch. Damn. Opening time. I motioned the other officer toward me, and he loped over, eager to see what was going on. Harold Wasserman was a retired engineer in his sixties who’d come to work for the Fernglen Galleria Security Office so he’d have a good excuse not to babysit his four-year-old grandsons. Twins. Short and slim with gray hair, he looked professional in the uniform, but I’d never seen him display much initiative.

  “Hey, EJ, what’s going on?”

  I briefed him quickly, motioning toward the body in the window, and asked him to make sure no one entered the wing from the Dillard’s at the far end. I also told him to ask any shop managers and employees on the wing to stay put until the police had done their investigating.

  “They’re not going to like that,” he said, shaking his head. A whiff of cigarette smoke floated off him. Damn. I’d lost the pool. Thirty-nine days ago, he’d quit for the sixth time since I’d known him; the longest he’d made it had been sixty-two days. My bet this time had been fifty-five days.

  “I don’t give a flip if they like it,” I said. “Just make sure they don’t come looky-looing, messing up the scene.”

  As he trailed off, voices and the scuffing of several pairs of heavy shoes heralded the arrival of the police. Two uniformed police came around the corner with a tall, blond man in a gray suit. He scanned the corridor and immediately told one of the uniforms to call for more patrol officers. The other uniform started slinging yellow and black crime scene tape across the entrance to the wing. I walked to meet the detective.

  He towered over my five-six, and I figured he must be at least six-three or six-four. Slim and in his midthirties, he had eyes that hovered between blue and gray, and a strong nose and jaw. Almost white-blond hair advertised his Nordic ancestry, and the cut of his gray suit and polish on his wingtips made him look more like the VP of a mediumsized company than a cop.

  I held out my hand and said, “I’m EJ Ferris. Let me fill you in on what’s happened.”

  His gaze slid over me, and I got the feeling he cataloged all the essentials in that two second glance: wavy chestnut hair with bangs, dark blue eyes, pale Irish complexion with a smattering of freckles, medium height and build with curves in the right places, limp in left leg. He’d be able to pick me out of a lineup.

  “Detective Sergeant Anders Helland,” he said with no discernible accent. His handshake was w
arm and strong. “And I’ll decide what’s happened here.”

  With that, he brushed past me, headed for Diamanté and the body. I stared after him, anger rising as heat in my face. Chill, I told myself. Be professional. I took long strides to catch up, not wanting to look like I was scurrying after him. From memory, I told him, “Gina Kissell”—I nodded toward the witness rocking Kaycee in her arms—“discovered the body at approximately nine fifty. She was here for exercise and saw no one in the vicinity. The lack of blood around the body makes me think he was shot elsewhere and brought here after he was dead. There are no signs—”

  “Did you disturb the scene?” he asked, looking down his long nose at me. His brows, several shades darker than his hair, twitched together, and his eyes went as icy as a fjord in January.

  “No. No one’s been in there since the body was discovered.” I glared at him.

  “Well, thank God for small favors. At least you knew enough not to trample all over the scene.”

  “I used to be—”

  But he was turning away again, examining the scene in the display window, before I could tell him I’d been a cop. A real one, not just a mall security officer. I knew my anger was way out of proportion to the slight, knew that most of my coworkers wouldn’t have a clue about how to handle a murder scene and that Helland had lumped me in with them, but still his response stung.

  More cops arrived, including a fortyish woman in a tan pantsuit who carried large cups in each hand. Steam and the smell of coffee escaped from the vents in the lids. “Wow, that’s effin’ creative,” she said, gazing at the body in the window and handing a cup to Helland. “What’s up with that, do you suppose?”