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  “Possibly.”

  She nodded with more confidence, swiping magenta-tipped bangs off her forehead. “I think I saw him in here yesterday with a girl, maybe his girlfriend. Right after I came back from my dinner break, so about five? She bought a pair of earrings. They’re on special: buy one pair get the next one free.” She pointed to a basket near the register.

  I felt faint pricks of excitement. If the girl had used a credit card, I could get a name and have something concrete to give to the condescending Detective Helland. “How did she pay?”

  “Cash,” Carrie said, dashing my hopes. “I remember because she asked that guy”—she nodded toward Celio’s photo—“for money, and he pulled out a roll of bills with a rubber band around them. I don’t see that every day. Little girls counting nickels and dimes from their piggy bank—yeah. Guys with rubber-banded money rolls—not so much.”

  “Thanks anyway,” I said. “Can you let me know if you see the girl again?” I gave her my card with the security office’s phone number on it.

  “Sure,” the manager said, tossing the card in a drawer beneath the register with a motion that told me I’d never hear from her. “You know,” she said as I turned to go, “it’s getting so I don’t feel safe here anymore. My dad totally wants me to quit this job. What with that man getting shot at Diamanté awhile back, and now this dude getting gunned down right outside our door practically, it’s like working in a war zone.”

  I debated reminding her that neither Jackson Porter nor Celio Arriaga had been shot on mall property, or giving her a graphic word picture of what life in a war zone was really like. But then I focused on the worry in her mascara-rimmed eyes and bit my tongue.

  “Me and Malia”—she nodded toward a Hawaiian-looking girl restocking a headband display at the back of the store—“are thinking about taking a self-defense class.”

  “That’s not a bad idea,” I said, giving it some thought. “Maybe we could even start one here.”

  “Really?” Her eyes lit up. “That would be beyond cool.”

  The more I thought about it, the more the idea appealed to me. “Let me run it past Mr. Quigley,” I said, “and I’ll get back to you. Mornings, before the stores open, might be a good time to hold classes.”

  A customer came to the register to purchase a boa molting purple feathers, and I left, pausing to think for a moment outside the shop. So, Celio Arriaga had been carrying a healthy amount of cash. Maybe his death was a robbery gone wrong after all. In which case the police should be doubly interested in interviewing the girl and guy who’d hung out with Celio in the mall; they’d undoubtedly known about the money, and that made them suspects numeros uno and dos, in my book.

  Before I could finish canvassing the stores in the wing, Captain Woskowicz swaggered around the corner and beckoned me with a peremptory head jerk. I knit my brows, not used to seeing my boss actually patrolling the halls. He mostly spent the days holed up in his office, allegedly “doing paperwork” and “liaising” on the phone, but more often playing computer games or watching DVDs.

  “Why the hell do I have to track you down to get a report, Ferris?” He jiggled a container of breath mints in one hand as he spoke. “Anyone see the punk?”

  Somewhat reluctantly, I told him what I’d found out. A Captain Woskowicz who seemed interested in doing his job made me vaguely uneasy because it was so out of character.

  “Did the Pete’s guy actually see a weapon?” Woskowicz demanded.

  “No, but—”

  “Then what the hell makes him think the gangbanger was carrying?” Woskowicz snorted. “He probably had his hand around that roll of soft you mentioned.”

  It wasn’t worth arguing about, but I was convinced that Colin Garver knew what he was talking about.

  “Did the police tell you what kind of gun was used?”

  I gave him a puzzled look. “You heard everything Helland said. I haven’t talked with him since.”

  Woskowicz harrumphed and tossed half a dozen breath mints into his mouth. “I don’t know why the cops want to waste resources on this case anyway. Gangbangers offing each other. NHI.”

  I looked a question at him.

  “No humans involved.”

  I fought down anger at his callousness. “Something else came up this morning,” I said, changing the subject. “One of the women who works here mentioned that she’s been thinking about signing up for a self-defense class. What would you think about my putting together a class?”

  He snorted. “Waste of time,” he said. “Woman wants to protect herself, she should get a gun.” His eyes slid sideways as he checked out the legs of two women entering the nail salon. He turned back to me. “If you want to waste your time teaching self-defense to a bunch of nervous Nellies, it’s no skin off my nose. Just make sure you do it on your own time because it’s not coming out of my budget.” He walked away.

  I finished canvassing the merchants, getting exactly what I expected in Starla’s Styles and Jen’s Toy Store—nothing—grabbed a quick lunch from the Wok My World in the food court, and returned to the office to type up my notes. Telling Joel I’d take over the dispatch duties so he could patrol, I sat down in the seat he vacated and began composing an email for Detective Helland. I stared at the scant half page with discontent when I was done. I hadn’t come up with much: Celio Arriaga had flashed a lot of cash, might have had a gun, bought earrings, and was still in the mall at about five o’clock. No one was going to be making an arrest based on that information. For all I knew, Helland and crew had already rounded up a likely suspect, or gotten a solid lead from a snitch, and didn’t even need my paltry bits of information. My mostly unacknowledged hope that I could make enough of an investigative contribution so that the Vernonville PD would overlook my disability and offer me a job dwindled. With a sigh, I sent the email.

  Hope sprang to life again that evening when I walked into my house, hair still dripping from my swim. An official-looking letter lay under the mail slot, half covered with advertising circulars and a reminder that I was due for a dental checkup. The return address was Galax Police Department, a small PD in a small town in the southwestern part of Virginia. I’d applied with them a couple months back and gone for an in-person interview almost three weeks ago. Maybe, just maybe…

  I took the envelope into the kitchen with me and pried the top off a local microbrew. After a couple sips, I slit the envelope with a paring knife. “Dear Ms. Ferris: Although we were impressed… blah, blah… wouldn’t hire you if you were the last sentient being on earth.”

  Okay, it didn’t really say that last bit, but it might as well have. They didn’t want me. My knee would keep me from meeting their physical-fitness standards. The same old story I’d heard from almost twenty other police departments around the state since I was medically retired. Rather than cry, I tore the letter into strips, piled them into a cast-iron frying pan, and lit them with a kitchen match. Fubar emerged from the hall as smoke wisped out of the kitchen. “Mrrowf?”

  “Sometimes a woman’s just got to set something on fire,” I told him. “Want to snuggle?”

  With a twitch of his lip that seemed to indicate that snuggling was not on his agenda—Fubar’s a big proponent of the “suck it up” school of dealing with disappointment—he leaped onto the counter and nosed around the canisters as I rinsed the ashes off in the sink and ran the garbage disposal for good measure.

  A knock at my back door made me whip around, feeling like I’d been caught out in some illicit activity. Grandpa Atherton stood on the back stoop, grinning in at me, his own white hair visible under a plaid motoring cap.

  Unlocking the door, I invited him in and hugged him. “Done chasing Moldovan diplomats?” I asked.

  “For the moment,” he replied with a smile that showed slightly age-yellowed teeth. He seated himself at my kitchen table, pulling off the hat. “What’s this I hear about another body in your mall?”

  “Don’t make it sound like we have one a week,�
�� I said, pulling ingredients from the fridge and pantry to make a shrimp pasta. “And this one was technically outside the mall, not in it. The cops think it’s a gang thing.”

  “Nothing for me to work on?” Grandpa asked, disappointment in his voice. “I found these grand new gadgets—listening devices that look like insects—that I’ve been wanting to field test.”

  “That gives new meaning to the word ‘bug.’”

  “I bought a fly and a spider. You plant them in the target’s office or home; no one ever suspects that the fly on their wall is a wonder of modern microtechnologies.”

  “What happens when your fly gets swatted?” I asked. “Or sprayed with insecticide?”

  “The website says they withstand pressure up to a hundred psi.”

  “How does that compare with your average swat?” I asked, curious despite myself.

  Grandpa shrugged. “Fill me in on the murder.”

  To humor him, I told him what I knew about Celio Arriaga, his death, and his last day at the mall. Grandpa listened and sniffed appreciatively as I sautéed fresh garlic in olive oil before dumping in frozen shrimp and some spinach. He waggled his bushy eyebrows when I mentioned the body was moved after the shooting.

  “That’s going to be at the crux of the case, you mark my words,” he said, pushing to his feet to set the table. “Gangs’ modus operandi lean more toward drive-by shootings and letting the corpses fall where they may.

  Gangbangers don’t move bodies, unless it’s to leave a message of some kind like ‘Stay off our turf’ or ‘This is what happens to people who rat.’ Do gangbangers say ‘rat’?”

  “Beats me. I get your point, though.” I narrowed my eyes against the steam as I slid linguini into a pot of boiling water. “A warning, huh? You could be on to something.” While the linguini cooked, I told him I was thinking about starting a self-defense class at the mall.

  “Count me in,” he said immediately. He went into a half crouch, hands uplifted in a martial arts pose.

  “For what?”

  “Your co-instructor, of course,” he said, abandoning his Jet Li pose to rasp a chunk of Romano cheese across a grater. “I don’t think I’d be going out on a limb to say I’ve had more hours of hand-to-hand combat training than anyone in Vernonville.”

  “Undoubtedly,” I said, trying to think of a tactful way to decline his offer. I shuddered at the thought of some overzealous student throwing my grandpa, with his brittle, octogenarian bones, to the ground. My mom would shoot me if Grandpa ended up with a broken hip or fractured spine. “I’m not sure when we’ll start,” I added, hedging. “I’ve got to clear it with Mr. Quigley and find some place to hold the class.”

  “Well, don’t let the grass grow under your feet, Emma-Joy.” Grandpa dished up generous helpings of linguini, which I topped with the shrimp and spinach sauce. We sat and began to eat. “In fact, if you’re too busy, I can make the arrangements, if you want. I’ll bet Theresa would come.”

  Theresa Eshelman was his day-care-owning lady friend. “I’ll talk to Quigley tomorrow,” I said, knowing that I had small chance of derailing Grandpa once he got excited about a project. I was preoccupied throughout dinner, grappling for an idea that would make Quigley put the kibosh on the whole plan, or insist that it be ladies only, or something else that would keep Grandpa out of the ER, where I was pretty sure he got “frequent visitor” discounts.

  Five

  In any event, I saw Curtis Quigley much sooner than I had anticipated. He called me midmorning and sent me searching for my boss, wanting an update on the murder case. When I knocked on Woskowicz’s office door and got no reply, I turned the handle.

  “Captain Woskowicz?” Easing the door wider, I poked my head around and saw that the office was empty. The desk was uncluttered—more a testament to his lack of work than his neatness—and the computer turned off. A lidded stainless steel mug sat atop a two-drawer filing cabinet. The air smelled faintly of breath mints.

  I returned to the main office and asked Joel, “Have you seen Captain W today?”

  “No.” Joel smiled at me hopefully. “Do you suppose he quit?”

  I gave him a “we should be so lucky” look and then dialed Quigley and told him I couldn’t locate the director of security. He ordered me to come brief him on the Arriaga investigation; before I left, I directed Joel to call Woskowicz’s home phone and cell while I was gone. I returned six minutes later, having cheered Quigley by telling him there was no further information and no evidence of mall involvement, and gotten his enthusiastic endorsement of the self-defense class. “Great idea, EJ!” Quigley had said. “Makes us appear proactive, like we’re looking out for our employees.”

  Joel shook his head at me. “No answer either place.”

  My brows knit together. Woskowicz certainly wasn’t going to get my vote for Boss of the Year, but he hadn’t missed a day of work since I started at the mall. Maybe he had a medical or dental appointment scheduled and had forgotten to tell us.

  “Do you think it’s connected to the murder?” Joel asked, eyes round.

  “Unlikely,” I said. Joel had some good analytical abilities but was attracted to lurid, interesting, or outrageous explanations for events rather than the humdrum, more likely ones. I was trying to break him of that tendency. Sending him out on patrol, I stayed in the office, fielding calls that would’ve gone to Captain Woskowicz and putting together a flyer for the self-defense class. When my boss still hadn’t shown up by noon, I called in an off-duty security officer so our staffing would be adequate. About an hour before my shift ended, a knock on the glass door brought my head around.

  A redheaded woman wrapped in a full-length, faux-cheetah coat stood outside. I gestured for her to come in. She looked around curiously and patted the red hair teased out a good three inches from her head. I guessed her to be a well-preserved fifty or so. Coral lipstick slicked her wide mouth, and pointy black boots covered her feet.

  “Can I help you?” I asked when she didn’t say anything.

  “Is Beaner around?” Her voice was a low-pitched, Joplin-esque growl with a distinct New York accent.

  “Beaner? I don’t know anyone by that name.”

  She huffed an impatient sigh. “He’s the boss of this place?”

  I stared at her, noting a stiffness to her face that suggested a botched Botox treatment. “You mean Captain Woskowicz?”

  “Yeah, him. Tell him I need the check. And I didn’t appreciate getting stood up last night. Damn, it’s toasty in here.” She cocked one hip and unbuttoned the coat to display a mega-tight white tee stretched so taut ripples corrugated the fabric between her large breasts. “That’s better. Look, is he back there? I’ll just tell him myself.”

  I stood and blocked her path. “I’m afraid Captain Woskowicz isn’t in yet today. I can give him a message that you stopped by, Ms.—?”

  “A likely story,” she said, a sneer in her voice that didn’t show up on her immobile face. “You tell him I want that alimony check right this minute or he’ll be hearing from my lawyer. I’ve got bills to pay, you know.”

  Alimony? So this was one of Captain Woskowicz’s ex-wives. Rumor said he had three. “He’s really not here, Ms.—” I tried again.

  “Nina Wertmuller,” she said. “What do you mean he hasn’t come in yet?”

  “He’s not here,” I said. “I’ll tell him—”

  “That’s not like him.”

  I got the impression that if her facial muscles had worked, she’d have had a line between her mostly penciled-on brows. “Where were you supposed to meet?”

  “At McGill’s. We meet there every month. He gives me the check, we have a couple of drinks and…” She trailed off coyly, and I had no trouble imagining what happened next—for old time’s sake, I was sure.

  “If he’s playing least in sight because he’s trying to stiff me on the check… I’ll go by the house and see if he’s there,” she announced.

  “Will you ask him to give the o
ffice a call if you find him?”

  “Sure thing. Hey, this looks like fun.” She picked up one of the self-defense class flyers stacked on the corner of my desk. Before I could tell her the class was for mall employees only, she spun on her booted heel, cheetah coat flapping, and brushed past Joel, who politely held the door for her.

  “Who was that?” he asked, gazing after her.

  “A former Mrs. Woskowicz,” I said.

  “She looks a little like my mother.”

  I didn’t know what to say to that, so I kept quiet, handing him a message slip from Sunny, the girl he was trying to lose weight for.

  “What did she want?”

  “Sunny?”

  “The ex–Mrs. W.” He tucked his uniform shirt more securely into his slacks; no matter what he did, Joel always managed to look a bit rumpled.

  “Her alimony check. Apparently, she and Captain W were supposed to meet last night and he didn’t show up.” I tapped a finger on the desk, more perturbed than I was letting on about the captain’s disappearing act. I wasn’t exactly worried, but the man was definitely acting out of character. I couldn’t see him passing up the chance for a little nookie with his ex-wife, not without a good reason.

  “What’ll happen if he doesn’t come back? You could have his job!” Joel’s brown eyes lit up.

  I gave him a look. “Did you finish the inspection of the fire extinguishers?”

  “Yeah. What’s this?” He reached for one of the flyers I’d printed on bright pink paper. “Self-defense? Cool.” He balled his hands into fists and jabbed at an invisible body bag, shuffling his feet like he was trying to scuff a mark off the floor.

  “It’s self-defense, not boxing,” I said, snatching the flyer away. “And it’s for women.”

  “EJ!” Joel actually looked hurt.

  “Oh, I suppose—it doesn’t matter… you can come.” I sighed. So much for telling Grandpa Atherton he needed two X chromosomes to participate.