1 Assault with a Deadly Glue Gun (26 page)

My head shot up. "Contrary to whatever erroneous opinion
you have of me, Detective, I'm a law-abiding citizen. I've never stolen anything in my life, and I don't plan to start now."

He puffed out his chest and glared back as if in challenge, but
his tightly pursed lips didn't move.

Batswin handed me a white business envelope. "The only bag
at Burberry that comes close to what you said Ricardo described is
four hundred dollars. This contains four hundred twenty-eight
dollars. Get a receipt."

"Of course." Accountants rule the world, no matter what your
line of business.

I was glad that Batswin had thought to calculate the tax and
add it to her catch-an-extortionist request from petty cash. The
tax had slipped my mind. I knew I didn't have an extra twentyeight dollars in my wallet. Twelve or thirteen maybe. Definitely not
more. Imagine the fiasco at the Burberry counter had I come up
short.

"We're working in conjunction with the Essex County police,"
said Robbins.

I turned my attention back to him and for the first time noticed the dark red stain on his Green Hornet tie. Spaghetti sauce?
Or blood from another murder case?

"Officers will be positioned throughout the mall, in the store,
and in the restroom," he continued.

Batswin took over. "When Ricardo calls to give you instructions for the drop, repeat what he says."

"So the officer in the restroom will hear me?"

"Exactly."

"Will someone follow me to the mall?"

"Several unmarked cars will tail you," said Robbins. "Why?"

Was I the only one among us who watched television? "In case
all this cloak and dagger is Ricardo's way of foiling a possible
sting."

They both stared at me, their faces impassive. I spelled it out
for them. "I don't know what this guy looks like. What kind of car
he drives. Neither do you. For all we know, he's lurking in the
parking lot at this very moment. Maybe his real plan is to force me
off the road somewhere between here and the mall."

That triggered a more ominous thought, which launched a lump
of dread pinballing around my insides. Woods and fields hugged
many of the roads that connected Trimedia to the mall. Woods and
fields perfect for body dumping.

"Even if I get to the mall without a hitch, who knows what wild
goose chase he's concocted for me after I buy the Burberry bag?
His ultimate plan could involve grabbing the money, then ridding
himself of the only witness to his extortion." I thumbed my chest.
"Me."

"We've covered all contingencies," said Batswin.

Instead of assuring me, her laid-back, monotone voice only increased my anxiety. "I have my kids to think of. If something goes
wrong-

"Follow directions, and nothing will go wrong," said Robbins.

His gruff, irritable tone ratcheted my apprehension up beyond
the stratosphere, but I had no choice other than to go along with
the detectives' strategy. Refusing to help them catch Ricardo would
add credence to their original theory-that I killed Marlys for the
diamonds in order to pay off Ricardo-even if that theory had
more holes in it than my kitchen colander. But that didn't seem to
matter to Batswin and Robbins.

Dangerous as their scheme seemed, at least if it worked, I'd
shake a two-thousand-pound gorilla off my back and have one less
Karl-created debacle sucking me into the La Brea tar pit of debt. I
zipped the canvas duffel and hoisted it onto my shoulder.

"I'm ready," I told Batswin and Robbins.

As the detectives followed me out of the conference room, an
image of Karl floated across my mind. Had my darling, deceased husband ever given us a thought as he gambled away our security
and his sons' futures?

And how many other Ricardos had he left in his wake, waiting
to pounce on me?

Leaving Batswin and Robbins cooling their heels at the elevator, my anxieties and I headed back to my cubicle to retrieve my
coat and purse. On the way, I bumped into Naomi and Erica. They
both eyed the weighty bag dragging down my shoulder.

"Weekend getaway?" asked Naomi.

"I wish."

She returned her attention to the sheaf of papers in her hand,
but Erica's brows knit together as she continued to stare at the duffel. "I swear I saw Detective Robbins carry that same bag into the
conference room earlier. Why do you have it now? What's in it?"

Naomi shifted her attention back to the duffel. She and Erica
followed me into my cubicle.

I worried the duffel strap as I wracked my brain for a plausible
explanation. When I was seven years old, Mama had told me she
knew when I lied because my face contorted into a smirk. I didn't
believe her until years later when I discovered I had passed along
that same defective Fib Gene to Alex. Nick had inherited Karl's
Look-You -in-the- Eye -and-Lie-With- a- Straight- Face Gene.

Turning my back to Naomi and Erica, I placed the duffel on
my chair and answered while slipping into my coat. "Just some of
my supplies the police confiscated during the murder investigation. Since they don't need them for evidence, they released them
back to me."

With the lie out of my mouth and the smirk hopefully gone
from my face, I heaved the duffel back onto my shoulder, grabbed my purse, and turned back to them. "I have a meeting with a yarn
manufacturer. See you both Monday."

Naomi and Erica filled the doorway, blocking my exit. Neither
made any effort to step aside.

"Aren't you forgetting something?" asked Erica.

I glanced around the small space. I had my coat. My purse. I
patted my pocket and heard my keys jingle. "I don't think so."

Erica pointed to the duffel. "Why are you taking your supplies
with you?"

Think fast, Anastasia! "I ... uhm ... since I've been out of the office so much lately, I thought I'd get caught up on some work over
the weekend."

Erica's face grew more puzzled. I glanced at Naomi. Her haute
couture composure had slipped a notch. Turmoil swam behind her
normally focused eyes.

Erica continued her questioning. "I don't understand. I
thought you had a studio at home. Why do you need to lug supplies back and forth?"

Her questioning began to feel more like an interrogation than
idle curiosity. Flippancy being the better part of cowardice, I chose
to throw her bloodhound pursuit off the scent with a quip. "The
dog ate them?"

Before she had a chance to ask another question, I nudged her
to the side, scooted around her, and headed for the elevator.

IN THE END, NEITHER murder nor mayhem descended on me as I
traveled the twenty miles to the mall. Not that my overactive
imagination didn't conjure up one dreadful scenario after another
the entire length of the drive. But as it turned out, my biggest dilemma involved the Hyundai's temperamental windshield defroster, not some behemoth SUV running me into a ditch.

When I finally pulled into a parking spot in one of the covered
garages, I loosened my death grip on the steering wheel. Although
my nerves would never be the same, the first leg of this harebrained escapade had ended without physical trauma-blunt or
otherwise-to my slightly overweight, middle-aged body.

Maybe my worries were groundless. Batswin and Robbins
would nab Ricardo as planned, and I'd be home in time for another night of mac and cheese. I tried to convince both myself and
my queasy stomach of that possibility as I entered the mall and
headed for the Burberry store.

The main difference between the Short Hills Mall and the
Upper East Side of New York is a roof. The same upscale, pricey
boutiques and shops that line either side of Madison and Fifth Avenues occupy two polished marble floors under a skylight in Short
Hills, New Jersey. Five of the finest department stores in the country act as anchors and add to the sophisticated ambiance.

Up until recently, I had enjoyed window-shopping at the mall
on rainy weekends. Sometimes I even succumbed to an impulse
splurge-if it was on sale. Now the sight of all these chi-chi shops
only reminded me of my recent fall from Middle-classdom.

My glance darted around the concourse as I made my way toward Burberry. Hand-in-hand couples, women pushing baby carriages, and matrons laden with packages strolled or rushed from
shop to shop. Here and there a single man loitered outside one of
the stores.

A bored husband waiting for his wife?

An undercover cop?

Ricardo?

Afraid to know one way or the other, I avoided eye contact
with all of them, clutched the duffel tighter, and picked up my
pace.

Two other customers, both men, were in Burberry. One contemplated a rack of lined raincoats; the other fingered the fringe
on a selection of scarves arranged on the counter in front of him.
Salesmen hovered near each. As I made my way over to the display
of totes, I felt all four men's eyes tracking my every move.

A woman wearing a cafe au lait Chanel suit, over which she
had draped a signature Burberry scarf, stepped from the back
room. She had pinned the scarf in place below her left shoulder with a gold initial pin. Opposite the pin, above her right breast, she
wore a nameplate, identifying her as Nanette. From her perfectly
coifed platinum pageboy down to her matching Burberry plaid
pumps, Nanette looked more like a society matron than a salesclerk.

Her sad smile made me wonder if we belonged to the same
Wronged Wives Club. Had her husband died and left her wallowing in debt? Or had he dumped her for a trophy wife? Nanette certainly didn't look like she'd spent her life in retail. More likely she
now had to supplement her monthly Social Security check by
working where she had once shopped.

Or maybe she was a damn good undercover cop.

"May I help you?" she asked.

"I'd like one of these totes," I said, pointing to the appropriate
bag.

"Certainly." She left the tote in the display and headed back toward the stock room. As I waited, I glanced across the room. The
two shoppers and their salesmen quickly averted their eyes. I
hoped they were all cops and not Ricardo with a posse of henchmen.

A minute later Nanette returned with a box. "Anything else?"

Did I look like I was rolling in money? I shook my head. "No,
that'll be all."

"Cash or charge?"

"Cash." I opened my purse, removed the envelope, and counted
out the four one hundred dollar bills, one twenty, a five, and three
singles.

"Would you like me to gift-wrap this for you?" she asked after I
had paid for the tote and placed the receipt back in the envelope.

"No, thank you."

Nanette placed the box in a shopping bag, thanked me for
shopping at Burberry, then offered me the standard end-of-sale
retail mantra, "Have a nice day."

The entire transaction had taken less than five minutes. The
four men watched me leave, but none of them followed as I exited
the store and headed across the concourse to the ladies' room.

The mall restroom suite looked more like those found in fivestar hotels. A large black and white marble lounge with mirrored
walls and oversized black leather chairs branched out into a ladies'
room at one end and a men's room at the other. Stalls in the ladies'
room were the size of department store dressing rooms.

Three other adults occupied the lounge. One woman primped
in front of the mirror at the far end of the room. Another sat in
one of the chairs and nursed an infant, while a man, presumably
her husband, tried to cajole an extremely fussy toddler.

I entered the ladies' room and glanced around. Three women,
all of them chatting about the sale at Bloomingdale's, washed their
hands at the sink. Seven women stood in line, waiting for stalls to
free up. I took my place behind them. One-by-one toilets flushed,
women exited stalls, and I crept forward.

Eventually I secured the stall Ricardo had indicated, locked the
door, and settled my bags on the pull-down baby-changing table. I
had yet to hear from Ricardo. Before transferring the money from
the duffel to the tote, I checked my phone to make sure the battery
hadn't died. The indicator showed I had plenty of juice left.