Die Buying (14 page)

“Jerk,” the girl by my elbow muttered.

“Let’s go in and talk this over,” I said, motioning to the security office. “What’s your name?”

“Julia,” the girl said, trying to hold onto her bravado. “It was no big deal.”

“We want to prosecute,” the Rock Star clerk said. “I’ve already called the police.”

I wasn’t surprised. Rock Star always pressed charges. Along with the music/DVD store, Rock Star Accessories suffered more losses than almost any other merchant, probably because they attracted the tween and teen clientele who mostly didn’t have a lot of money to spend and who thought it was “cool” to shoplift. Also, their merchandise was eminently “liftable,” unlike, say, a coffee table from the Macy’s home store.

“The police!” Julia looked as though she’d just realized the consequences of shoplifting might not be pleasant. “But I didn’t mean to take them. Here, you can have them back.” She plunged her hand into the bag and pulled out a pair of chandelier earrings that probably cost all of $4.99. She thrust them at the clerk, who put her hands behind her back and shook her head.

“Our policy is to prosecute,” she said snippily.

Julia looked wildly from the clerk to me, ponytail swishing across her shoulders. “Look,” she said, “if you can overlook this just this once—I swear I’ve never done anything like this before—I can tell you who killed that guy in Diamanté.”

I worked on keeping my expression neutral. Joel was less successful; his brows soared toward his hairline.

“The police have closed that case,” I said.

“Well, they’ve got the wrong guy,” the girl replied. She crossed her arms over her chest.

I didn’t mention that they didn’t “have” anyone, that their suspect had killed himself. “What makes you think so?”

“Will you let me go?”

I sent a glance to the Rock Star clerk, who was listening avidly. She shook her head. “No way.”

“We’ll see,” I said, beginning to dislike Miss Rock Star. Holding people to standards is one thing, being rigidly inflexible another.

“Depends on what you know about the murder,” I told Julia. I seriously doubted that she knew anything—what connection could she possibly have with Jackson Porter?—and was making a desperate bid for freedom.

Sensing that my “we’ll see” was the best she was going to do, Julia said, “It was my mom.” She promptly burst into tears.

Reactions to Julia’s
accusation were mixed.

“That is the lamest thing I ever heard,” said Miss Rock Star with a sniff.

“You would rat out your mom?” This came from Joel.

I thought she sounded just scared enough and tragic enough to be telling the truth. Or, at least what she thought was the truth.

Julia sobbed on, mascara beginning to track down her face.

“Why don’t you call your mom?” I suggested, handing her a box of tissues.

“Uh-uh,” she managed between sobs. “I can’t.”

“Let me see your cell phone.” I held out my hand.

Swiping the back of one hand across her cheeks, Julia pulled the phone from her pocket and handed it to me. I found “Home” in her call list and pushed the button.

“No, don’t!” the teenager said, realizing what I was doing. She lunged for the phone, but I held it above her reach.

“Sit,” I ordered.

A voice said, “Hello. Hello?” from the phone, and I lowered it to my ear.

“Hello, ma’am,” I said, then introduced myself. “We have a situation involving Julia here at Fernglen Galleria, and we need you to come by. You know where the security office is? On the second floor, near Sears.”

After a moment’s stunned silence, she said, “I’ll be right there.”

I gave her big points for not sputtering, arguing, or chewing me out. Handing the phone back to Julia, I asked, “What makes you think your mom had anything to do with Jackson Porter’s death?”

“She hated him,” Julia said. Her tears had dried up and sullenness had taken their place. “Him and that development he was building. I thought it would be cool to have new shops and a resort with a pool right around the corner, but it turned my mom into a raging bitch.”

“That’s no way to talk about your—” Joel started, his southern sensibilities affronted, but I stopped him with a glance.

“Maybe you could walk Cassie here—”

“Carrie,” Miss Rock Star said.

“—back to her store and get her statement. I’ll keep an eye on the screens and get the phone,” I said.

“Sure thing,” Joel agreed.

I waited until they had left the office before turning back to Julia. “So you live near here?”

“Across the way. The hotel’s gonna back up to practically against our fence. I’m sure my mom wouldn’t have been so pissed off if we’d been gonna end up on one of the golf fairways,” she said cynically. She scraped at chipping blue polish on her thumbnail, not meeting my eyes. “She organized the whole neighborhood to protest the development and get a court order to stop it. Had a meeting with that Mr. Porter and everything.”

“Really?” I let her momentum, and what I suspected was typical teenage-daughter resentment of her mom, carry her on.

“Yeah, he even came to the house. I heard her say that if he were dead there wouldn’t be an Olympus to ruin our property value.”

“And that’s what makes you think she killed him?”

“No. It was the blood.”

Now she had my attention. “What blood, Julia?” For the first time, I was glad I wasn’t a cop. If I had been, I’d’ve been obligated to make sure one of Julia’s parents was present, and to jump through a lot of other hoops before questioning the girl. As it was, we were just two private citizens having a conversation.

“In the backyard.. He was at our house on Sunday afternoon, and then he was dead on Monday and there was a whole lot of blood in our backyard.” Tears trembled in her voice again.

“Did you hear a gunshot?”

She shook her head. “No, but I spent the night at Taylor’s house.”

I thought for a moment as Julia watched me anxiously. “Do your folks own a gun?”

She nodded, ponytail bobbing. “Yes. My dad gave it to my mom when they got divorced.”

What a thoughtful guy. Before I could ask anything else, Julia volunteered, “The blood’s not there anymore. I saw it Monday morning when I came home to get ready for school. When I got home that afternoon, it was gone. I mentioned it to Mom at dinner and she got all edgy, told me not to worry about it. Do you think she did it?” she finished in a whisper.

“Did what?”

The question came from a woman who bore a striking resemblance to Julia. She had the same blond hair and high cheekbones and the same basic build, although she had a bit more padding at bust and hips than her daughter did. She wore a zip-up fuzzy vest over mom jeans and looked like she could make corporate purchasing decisions, coach a kids’ soccer team, do the family taxes, and still have dinner on the table by seven o’clock. She was accompanied by a pin-striped-suited man with a briefcase who had “lawyer” stamped all over him. How had she rounded him up so quickly?

“Did what, Julia?” She looked searchingly at her daughter, who evaded her gaze.

“I’m EJ Ferris,” I said, stepping forward with my hand out.

“Marcia Cleaton,” she said, with a firm shake. “And this is—”

“Denny Snodgrass,” the lawyer said. “I’m Marcia’s lawyer.”

“Boyfriend,” Julia muttered.

“What seems to be the problem here?” Snodgrass asked, ignoring Julia.

“The clerk at Rock Star Accessories observed Julia leaving with merchandise she hadn’t paid for,” I said.

Marcia Cleaton gasped. “You were shoplifting?”

“Why do you always assume the worst, Mom?” Julia snarled, conveniently forgetting that she had, in fact, shoplifted.

“I’m sure it’s just a misunderstanding,” Snodgrass put in unctuously. “I’m sure the mall doesn’t wish to press charges in this kind of case.” He looked at me.

I wasn’t sure what he meant by “this kind of case.” Were we not supposed to press charges when the perp was a cute teenager? When the perp’s parents were (presumably) upstanding members of the community? Or when we were confronted by the might of the legal system as represented by one Denny Snodgrass? “It’s not up to me,” I said. “I believe Rock Star has already called the police. The store will make the decision to press charges or not.”

As I said it, Joel slipped back into the office and quietly resumed his seat.

“I’m sure we can reason with them,” Denny said as Marcia Cleaton crossed to her daughter and tried to hug her. Julia shrugged out from under her mother’s arm.

“I can’t believe you shoplifted,” Marcia Cleaton said again, staring at her daughter as if at a stranger. “Your father and I taught you better than that. You get a reasonable allowance. You make money babysitting. Why—”

“At least I didn’t kill anyone!”

Marcia Cleaton reared back as if slapped. “What the
hell
is that supposed to mean?” Her voice went from puzzled mother to pissed-off corporate honcho in a heartbeat.

Having spat out her accusation, Julia stood, like a burden had lifted from her shoulders. “Come off it, Mom. I saw the blood.” She strode toward Snodgrass and the door. “C’mon, Denny.”

“The blood? Are you talking about—”

“I’m talking about Jackson Porter, okay?”

Marcia paled.

Little-girl bravado and a too-grown-up desire to inflict hurt shone on Julia’s pert face, mixed with a teaspoon of satisfaction at her mother’s reaction. I’d never felt a yearning for children—it wasn’t like I was set against the idea with the right guy, but I’d never felt incomplete without them— but watching this byplay was convincing me that parenting Fubar was the closest I wanted to come to the real thing. I could cope with a dead rodent or two and the occasional hairball yakked up onto the carpet. This ugliness was something else entirely.

“Don’t say anything, Marcia,” Snodgrass warned, taking her elbow and steering her toward the door.

“Let’s go down to that stupid store,” Julia said, marching out the door, “and get this over with. I’ll offer to pay them back or whatever, and we can get the hell out of here. It’s not like it was a big deal.”

“I’ll be right back,” I told Joel, following the unhappy little party out the door. I mostly wanted to make sure that Julia and Marcia didn’t kill each other on mall property; we’d had enough homicides for one week.

We found a uniformed Vernonville Police Department patrol officer waiting at Rock Star Accessories with Carrie filling him in on the heist details. “Arrest her,” she said, pointing a finger at Julia when we appeared.

“It might be best,” Marcia said.

Julia whirled, her mouth open in a comic book “O” of astonishment. “What?”

“Maybe it’s time you learned about action and consequence, sweetheart,” Marcia said sadly.

I wasn’t sure if the action-consequence link she had in mind was shoplifting and getting arrested, or ratting out your mom and getting cast adrift. A hard lesson either way.

“But you said—” Julia turned to me, pleading with her eyes.

“She has some information that might interest Detective Helland,” I told the officer. “About the Jackson Porter case.”

“They closed that one,” the young officer informed me.

“I know. But Helland might still want to hear what she has to say. I’ll give him a call,” I said to Julia. Underneath her obnoxious manner and air of entitlement, I sensed real distress about her mother’s possible involvement in the Porter case; the least I could do was try to pave the way with a call to Detective Helland.

“Now, just a minute,” Denny Snodgrass started.

Not interested in whatever lawyerly objection he felt compelled to offer, I walked slowly back toward the security office where I knew Joel would be anxious to hear what was going on. I made him wait while I dialed Helland’s number. When the desk sergeant finally got him on the line, I filled him in on what Julia Cleaton had said. A long pause hummed over the line when I finished.

Finally, Helland said in a weary voice, “What part of ‘case closed’ doesn’t resonate with you, Officer Ferris?”

“The part where you don’t explain why Gatchel would have displayed the body in the window and the part where you haven’t even figured out where he was shot,” I said hotly, tired of being condescended to.

“What makes you think we haven’t located the murder scene?”

“Have you?”

More silence. “No.”

I bit back the “Hah!” that sprang to my lips. “It’s easier to pin it on Gatchel, I’m sure, but—”

“This may surprise you, but I don’t look for ‘easy’ in my investigations.” Anger tinged his voice. “If you must know, we interviewed Marcia Cleaton and several other people with a grudge against Porter or the Olympus development. We found no evidence indicating any of them were involved in his death.”

“Did you know Porter was at the Cleaton house on Sunday afternoon?”