Die Buying Read online

  “Weasel,” Joel said.

  He was right; it was only Billy Wedzel, the midshift officer responsible for mall security from eleven at night to seven in the morning. The camera had caught activity near the movie theater until the last film let out at just past midnight, but nothing after that. A couple of fuzzy cars entered the north garage at just after two a.m., moving with the stuttering motion that not enough frames per second produced. I wished Helland and crew good luck in getting a license plate number. The cars were on the opposite side of the mall from Diamanté, anyway, and probably had no connection with the murder.

  “Well, that wasn’t worth wasting a CD on,” Joel observed, disappointed.

  I popped the CD out and slid it into a case. “Maybe the murder will get management to upgrade the camera system,” I said, not believing it. Cost cutting was the order of the day at Fernglen, and it would take a terrorist attack or an alien invasion, I figured, to get Quigley to allocate more money to security. Taking the blueprints, the abbreviated personnel list, and the CD, I glided back toward Diamanté.

  Crime scene tape still roped off the area, but the crowd had diminished. The body was gone from the display window, I noted with a glance, and Gina Kissell and her baby had left. The lone cop standing at the entrance to the wing looked over at Detective Blythe Livingston when I told him I had documents requested by Detective Helland. She stood talking to a crime scene technician who was stooped over, removing his blue paper booties, and she nodded permission for me to enter. The uniformed officer had me sign in on a clipboard before letting me pass.

  Feeling a bit like an interloper, and hating it, I approached Detective Livingston. “I’ve got the CD from the security cameras and some of the data Detective Helland asked for,” I said.

  “Some?” she asked with an appraising look from shrewd brown eyes.

  I tucked my hair behind my ear. “The mall doesn’t have a consolidated list of all employees—they’re hired by the individual stores.” I thrust the documents and CD toward her, but she put her hands up, palms out, refusing to take them.

  “I’m due in court in thirty minutes, so I’m out of here. He’s in the store.” Noting my hesitation, she added, “We’ve processed it. It’s okay to go in.” On the words, she headed away from me with brisk click-clacks from her pumps.

  Armed with her permission, I crossed the threshold of Diamanté, automatically cataloging what I saw. Other than in the display window, where three mannequins lay in a tangle of stiff limbs and vacant stares, probably pushed aside so the coroner’s team could remove the body, nothing looked out of place. No footprints, mud, blood, or other marks marred the marble-tile floor. Widely spaced racks of clothing, many glistening with the sheen of silk or the sparkle of sequins, stood undisturbed, waiting for a wealthy socialite to spin them and make a selection. The glossy red doors that led to three fitting rooms were all discreetly closed. The scent of a lavender air freshener overlay the faint, sweet odor of decay. Breathing shallowly through my mouth, I moved further into the store.

  A cash register sat unattended on a glass-topped counter filled with jewelry. No smudges. Finola and her staff clearly did a better job with cleaning than I did; my glass-topped coffee table showed fingerprints, dust motes, and cat hairs mere seconds after I Windexed it. Voices came from the open door of an office tucked behind the counter, and I approached quietly, willing to eavesdrop to learn what the early investigation had turned up. However, as I neared the door, Finola Craig emerged, saying, “I’m perfectly certain nothing’s missing.” Her slender fingers toyed with the chains dangling from her neck, making them clink. “With the exception of that”—she waved toward the window—“everything is as it should be. I closed up myself last night: reconciled the register, cleaned the counters, vacuumed, straightened the stock. Oh, hi, EJ.” She looked startled, but not unhappy, to see me.

  Detective Helland came out of the office. “About time,” he said, spotting the folders I held. He stepped toward me and stretched out an imperious hand. Slapping the folders into his left hand, I noted the breadth of his palm and his long fingers. No ring. My eyes met his, and I dared him to mention the sandwich.

  “Thanks. I’ll let you know when we need something else. Don’t worry about forgetting my sandwich,” he added blandly. “One of the uniforms picked one up for me.” He nodded toward a deli bag I hadn’t noticed on the far side of the register.

  The man was infuriating. Reluctantly, I let professionalism win out over my irritation. “The security officer on duty last night was—”

  “I’ll go through this,” Helland interrupted, waving the folder, “and let you know who I need to interview. You can set them up.” Without a “thanks” or a “good-bye,” he strode from the store, leaving fluttering fabrics in his wake.

  I gave Finola Craig a speculative look, wondering what she’d told Helland, but decided to talk to her later. Helland might pop back in, and I was damned sure he wouldn’t be happy about me interviewing one of his possible suspects. Not that I cared about his happiness or planned to let his anticipated ire stop me from interviewing anyone I wanted to, but I didn’t want him to catch me. Besides which, I needed to get back on patrol. “Are you holding up okay?” I asked Finola as we moved toward the door.

  “It’s horrid,” she said, blinking rapidly. Blotches of darker gray blossomed on the breast of her pearl gray jacket. “Nothing like this has ever—I can’t believe that Jack is—” Pulling a lace-edged hanky from her skirt pocket, she hurried away from me in the direction of the restrooms. I stared after her for a moment. Yes, having someone murdered in your boutique was an ugly thing, but she seemed overly distraught to me. She’d referred to the vic as “Jack.” Pretty cozy way to talk about a casual customer. What, exactly, had her relationship with the dead developer been?

  Swinging by the Herpetology Hut, I was hoping for an update from Kiefer, but the store was locked and he wasn’t there. Probably still out corralling his stock. As far as I knew, the Vernonville PD hadn’t sent anyone to take his statement yet, and there’d been no sign of anyone from Animal Control. Sigh.

  “Miss! Officer!” A man hurried toward me, suit jacket flapping, fleshy face reddened by anger or exertion.

  I stopped the Segway. “How can I help you, sir?”

  “My car! Some criminal spray painted my Beemer. In broad daylight!”

  “Show me,” I said, dismounting from the Segway. Unfortunately, I had a pretty good idea of what he was going to show me; we’d been having trouble since Christmas with cars getting spray painted by kids—it felt like teens to me—clever enough to avoid our surveillance cameras. They tagged one car a day, always at different times. I walked beside the incensed man to the wall of doors giving access to the north parking lot. On the way, I got his name—Kenneth Downs—and his address. It wasn’t hard to spot his car once we emerged into the weak February sun. It was the only black BMW in the lot with “Jesus Is Ur Savior” written in orange across the hood and driver’s-side panels. The “i” in “Savior” was dotted with a smiley face. Downs gobbled at the sight. “It’s . . . it’s sacrilege!” he finally spat.

  I didn’t think he intended the irony. Without replying, I took photos of the graffiti and jotted notes for my report. “You’ll need to inform your insurance company,” I told Downs, giving him my card. “You can have them call me.”

  “Aren’t you going to fingerprint it or something?” he asked, walking around the car, head bent looking for other damage. “Maybe I should call the real cops.”

  “There won’t be fingerprints,” I told him, having taken it upon myself to dust the first couple of graffitied cars we’d found in December. “The taggers wear gloves. And you’re certainly welcome to call the Vernonville PD, but I can tell you they won’t send an officer out for property damage of this sort. They’ll just file a report.”

  “I pay taxes!” Downs grumbled. “For what?” He yanked open the car door and it bounced off him, leaving a smear of orange on his
slacks. “Damn it!” He slid into the car, slammed the door, and ground the gears as he pulled out, narrowly missing a woman pushing a baby stroller.

  “You’re welcome,” I said to his rapidly disappearing bumper. The woman with the stroller gave him the finger, and I felt like high-fiving her. Throughout my law enforcement career, from the time I’d enlisted in the air force and gone to Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio for training, my biggest challenge had been remaining polite and even sympathetic in the face of crass rudeness. I forced myself to remember that citizens weren’t used to confronting violence—attacks on their persons or property—and that they felt violated. Still, I had to bite my tongue sometimes when people acted entitled or abusive. In many ways, dealing with criminals or enemy soldiers was an easier proposition. And wasn’t that a sad statement, I thought, returning to the mall.

  Four

  I walked back into the security office at three, the end of my shift (I was on days this week, which ran seven to three), after a couple hours of patrolling. I’d reassured two shoppers who’d encountered lizards (and returned the little geckos to Kiefer), discouraged a teenager from riding his skateboard down the escalator, and helped an elderly gentleman find his car. Routine. The kind of humdrum policing I did most days. All the while, the murder played in the back of my mind, and I made a mental list of the things I’d follow up on . . . if it were my case, which it wasn’t.

  As I pushed through the glass doors to the office, I heard an unwelcome voice apparently finishing up a joke. Weasel. Billy Wedzel, actually, but “Weasel” fit better. He followed the punch line with nasty laughter, the kind of Beavis and Butthead sniggering adolescent boys have perfected. “Get it?” he said in his nasal voice. “Her ta-tas—”

  “I got it,” Joel said in a long-suffering tone. “I just didn’t think it was funny.”

  “Well, who asked you, asswipe?”

  I stepped far enough into the office that they spotted me. “Well, look who’s here. General Ferris.” Weasel gave me a mock salute, touching his middle finger to his brow. He had sunken cheeks, a sharp nose, and dishwater blond hair that fell lankly across his brow. He slouched back in a chair, his booted feet propped on a desk near his expensive cell phone. His white uniform shirt showed yellow patches under the arms as he laced his fingers behind his head. “I hear tell you found a dead body today.”

  “A customer did,” I said. “I was curious about how Mr. Porter ended up in a display window on your shift, Weasel.” Weasel was permanently on the midnight shift, eleven p.m. to seven a.m. The rest of us worked staggered, rotating shifts, but Weasel had a deal of some sorts with Woskowicz and always worked mids. No one complained because no one else wanted that shift.

  Joel shot me a warning glance, but I ignored him. I knew Weasel was meaner than a feral hog, that he was in tight with Woskowicz, but I didn’t give a damn. He was, at best, lazy, and, more likely, a thief.

  He scowled. “I didn’t see nothing.”

  “There’s a surprise. Just like you don’t see anything when merchandise marches out of Macy’s on the midshift or cars get boosted from the parking garage. You should see an ophthalmologist,” I said with spurious concern. Crossing to my desk, I flipped through the couple of message slips on the blotter. Nothing urgent.

  “Now you just wait a minute,” Weasel said, sitting forward and bringing his feet to the floor with a thud. “Are you calling me a crook?”

  “Did I say that?” I gave Joel a wide-eyed, questioning look, and he obligingly shook his head. “I just expressed concern for your vision problems. Like last night . . . what did you see? Anything unusual go down?”

  Not having access to the autopsy and forensic reports, I had no idea what time Helland and his team thought the body had been arranged in the window. The mall closed at five on Sundays, and dark came shortly thereafter at this time of year, so I figured it could have been anywhere between six p.m. and four thirty a.m. Probably not any later than that since commuters would have been zooming by on their way to spend a fulfilling day in their cubicles.

  “It was a quiet night,” Weasel said. His cell phone rang and he glanced at it, then ignored it. “I didn’t see anything on my rounds. It was quieter than a NASCAR track on Christmas Day.” His eyes shifted away from mine, and I knew he was lying. Trouble was, I didn’t know what he was lying about. He could have spent the whole night holed up in the office with a magazine and a six-pack, or he could have been engaged in something nefarious that had nothing to do with the murder, or—

  “Is there a problem here? Aren’t you off shift, Ferris? What are you still doing here?”

  Woskowicz was back, and although his words were rough, his expression spoke of self-satisfaction. I looked closer to see if canary feathers dangled from his lips. “Be sure to watch the five o’clock newscast tonight,” he said, sticking his thumbs in his belt and puffing out his chest. “They’ll show my interview with that hot reporter. She was really into me. We’re hooking up later this week for a drink.”

  “Way to go, boss,” Weasel said, leering. “You ready to go to lunch?” His phone rang again, and this time he picked it up, covering his mouth as he muttered into it.

  Joel rolled his eyes at me.

  “I’m on my way out,” I said, knowing I’d get nothing more from Weasel with Woskowicz standing there. And it wasn’t my job to interrogate Weasel, I reminded myself. Helland and crew would get onto Weasel, probably by tomorrow, and they’d dig out whatever nuggets he had to offer. I hauled my gym bag from under my desk and slung it over my shoulder, giving the room a generalized “Bye” as I walked out, already thinking ahead to the pool and how good it would feel to swim half a mile, let the water ease away the day’s worries and frustrations.

  On my way to the south lot where I’d left my car, I passed Tombino’s, the combination bar and restaurant that had been a fixture in Fernglen since the mall first opened. Through the smoked glass window, I caught sight of Finola Craig sitting at a table in the bar, staring morosely into a tall glass. My footsteps slowed. She looked like she could use a shoulder to cry on. But if I went in and had a drink with her, I probably wouldn’t make it to the pool. Finola was a big girl; she could share her woes with the bartender and call a cab to get home. I marched past Tombino’s and actually had my hand on the exit door when I spun with a little growl and walked back to the restaurant.

  Tombino’s was dim, even in the middle of the afternoon, and deserted except for Finola, a bartender swabbing a beer glass with a rag, and a kid running a vacuum in the restaurant. It smelled like tomato sauce and garlic. The lunch special was always “Pasta Your Way,” where for $6.99 you could have all-you-can-eat pasta topped with marinara, pesto, or Alfredo sauces. Finola didn’t look as though she’d bothered with lunch—she’d gone straight to cocktail hour, judging by the three sword-shaped plastic skewers at her elbow. A fourth held a wedge of pineapple and a cherry in her drink. She sat with one elbow on the table, cheek on her hand, the other hand loosely cupped around the base of her glass. Her usually immaculate blond hair had straggled loose from her French braid, and she’d tossed her gray suit jacket onto the back of her bar stool; it had fallen in a crumpled heap to the floor.

  “Hey, Finola,” I said, retrieving the jacket and laying it on the next table. Sliding onto a stool, I scooted it closer to the high, round table. “How’re you holding up?”

  She lolled her head to one side and looked at me from glassy eyes. “Jus’ great.”

  “Would you like a drink?” The bartender interrupted us.

  “Club soda.” It might be the end of my workday, but I couldn’t see downing a beer at this hour. I turned back to Finola.

  “Have the police told you anything?”

  She shook her head, nearly rocking herself off the stool. She clutched at the table. “Not a damn thing. Oh, except that I can’t open the ssstore until Friday at the earliest. D’you know what no revenue for a week will do to me?”

  I didn’t know, but I did
n’t imagine it could be good. “No.”

  “I’ll be down the crapper.” She made a flushing motion with one hand and a noise like running water. Then she giggled.

  I didn’t think I’d ever heard the elegant, reserved Finola giggle. “I hope it’s not that bad,” I said. “Maybe you’ll get a really big crowd this weekend.” I didn’t say it out loud, but widely publicized murders—as I was sure this would be—frequently attracted crowds of looky-loos wanting to inspect the site of violent death. Their reasoning eluded me, but I’d seen it happen time and again.

  She shrugged, sending the blue camisole’s strap sagging down her arm. She pulled it up. She peered at me as if trying to focus on my face. “Maybe. Maybe not. There’s not much margin in retail, you know, and now with that damned Olympush going up—” She seemed to lose her train of thought, her eyes drifting to the side. With an effort, she brought them back to my face. “Hey! Maybe now that Jack is dead—” She stopped again and lifted her glass, taking a long swallow.