Die Buying (16 page)

A figure clad
in a black leather jacket and jeans stepped out from behind the column, hands held unthreateningly out to his sides. “Just me.”

My eyes narrowed as I recognized the mall’s newest cookie franchise operator. Of all the people I might have expected to see, he wasn’t even on my list. “It’s a little early for baking oatmeal scotchies, isn’t it, Mr. Callahan?”

“Jay. It’s never too early—or late—for cookies, in my opinion,” he said, walking toward me, hands held palm out. He moved with the economical motion of an athlete. “Can I put my hands down now?”

I waved an impatient hand and slid the pepper spray back in its slot. “What the hell are you doing here?”

“Independent businessmen work long hours,” he said. “In case you haven’t noticed, the economy sucks.”

“Uh-huh.” I unlocked the door and passed through it as he held it open. The hall’s warmth washed over me in a comforting wave. I hadn’t realized how chilly I was until I came in. “And I didn’t see your car.”

“It’s out there,” he said, waving a hand toward the world at large beyond Fernglen’s walls.

His answer fell squarely into the “duh” category and exasperated the hell out of me. I swung around, blocking his path. We faced each other with no more than a foot between us. “What were you doing in the garage? Did you know those men were going to be there?”

Jay’s hazel eyes looked down into mine, and for a moment I thought he might give me a serious answer. Then, he said, “Why are you the only mall cop with a scooter?”

“It’s a Segway, not a scooter,” I said, then slapped myself mentally for responding to his comment.

“Let’s have a cookie.” He eased past me, his arm brushing mine, and I felt a jolt.

“I don’t want a cookie,” I said. “I want to know what was happening out there.”

“I don’t know.” He kept walking. I got on the Segway and glided up beside him, keeping pace.

“But you have your suspicions.”

“I have a suspicious nature,” he said, with a small, lopsided smile.

Well, so did I, and I suddenly wondered if he’d been part of what was going down in the garage. It had looked like he was observing the men in the car, or even spying on them, but maybe he was a lookout for them—not a good one since I’d snuck up on them—or had been about to join them when I came up.

“I’m going to call the license plates in to the Vernonville PD,” I warned him.

“Good idea.”

We had reached the fountain by this time, our voices and his footsteps echoing strangely in the empty corridors. We turned toward the food court and I asked, “Are you really going to make cookies?”

“Of course.” He raised his brows as if surprised by my question. “If I don’t, you might think I’m here for some nefarious reason. Can’t have that.”

“Are you a cop?” I shot at him. “An investigative journalist?”

I thought surprise flickered in his eyes, but he responded blandly. “I’m just an entrepreneur looking to make a buck off the American public’s jones for sugar and fat and chocolate. It’s better to work on my new recipes at night. Fewer industrial spies looking to steal my proprietary secrets.” He looked around in an exaggerated way, as if expecting to spot a rival cookie mogul lurking behind the trash cans or under the counters of the other food stands.

I growled deep in my throat and spun the Segway around. As I glided off, he called after me, “Come back in half an hour for a cookie.”

Back in the security office, I pulled up one of the food court cameras to see Jay Callahan lifting a huge stainless steel bowl. Then he disappeared into the back—the kitchen, I presumed—and didn’t come out again. Scanning the outside cameras, I searched for his car but saw no vehicles besides my own. I kicked back in the chair, thinking. Maybe he lived within walking distance? If not, why had he gone to the trouble of hiding his vehicle? There was more to Jay Callahan than met the eye. Far more.

To resist the urge to stare at the food court camera the rest of the night, I descended to the first floor and got into the security office’s vehicle, parked in its usual spot by the Sears entrance in the lower level garage. A white Buick, it had green lettering proclaiming FERNGLEN SECURITY stenciled on both sides. I cruised the mall’s lots, checking for any other unusual activity, but saw nothing. The snow was falling harder when I returned the car to its slot, and snowflakes filtered through the yellow cones of light beamed by the headlights.

By the time I returned to Legendary Lola Cookies on the Segway as part of my routine patrol, over an hour and a half had passed since I’d left Jay Callahan. He was gone, but the smell of warm cookies lingered in the air. A paper plate bearing two cookies rested on the counter. As I drew closer, I saw that one had “MALL” written on it in blue icing and the other said “COP.” Whatever else he’d been up to here tonight, he’d really made cookies. I was conscious of a faint feeling of regret that he hadn’t waited for me, but I stamped it down and bit into the COP cookie. My watch told me it was four thirty, so I headed to the main entrance between the Nordstrom and Dillard’s to let in the first wave of mall walkers. I arrived to find at least twenty people gathered on the concrete apron, stamping their feet to keep warm and exhaling great clouds of steam. I’d thought Grandpa Atherton might be among them, but I didn’t see him.

“Where’s Office Wedzel?” one woman asked as the crowd streamed past me into the hall.

“Family emergency,” I said.

The mall felt livelier now with exercisers race-walking the halls, keeping within three feet of the walls to maximize their distance. The really gung-ho even went to the extreme of walking into alcoves and doorways. I motored up beside some of the walkers, chatting for a moment before showing them the photo of Robbie Porter. All I got were headshakes until I reached a slim, sixtyish woman wearing turquoise leggings with black stripes and a matching jacket. She had stylishly cut gray hair and looked sideways at me through fashionable rectangular bifocals. I pegged her as a corporate vice president or CFO or some such.

“I’ve seen him a couple times,” she surprised me by saying. Her voice was pitched low, but her enunciation was crisp. “Is he a drug dealer?”

“Possibly,” I said. “Why do you ask?”

“He always looks . . . furtive.” She pumped her arms hard and passed a pair of amblers doing more gossiping than walking. I kept pace on the Segway. “And I’ve seen him with some sleazy looking types once or twice.”

Excitement zipped through me. “Where?”

“In the east garage, on the second level where you come in to Dillard’s. He sort of . . . hovers around there, like he’s waiting for someone.” She wrinkled her nose as if smelling something distasteful. “At first, I thought he was homeless, but there’s just something about him . . .”

“When did you last see him?”

Her gaze drifted to the right as she thought. “Monday? On my way in here to walk. He was there, by the door. It’s like it’s his spot. He always wears a ski cap, a black one with a red pom-pom.” She scrunched her fingers above her head.

Robbie Porter had been here at the mall on Monday morning! I didn’t know what time the coroner had established for Jackson Porter’s death, but odds were it was late Sunday night or early Monday.

“I reported him once, a couple months back,” the woman said, “to the officer who’s usually here.”

“Officer Wedzel?”

She nodded. “That’s the one. I didn’t see the young man”—she nodded at the mug shot in my hand—“for a couple weeks after that, but he’s been around, off and on, for over a month.”

I wondered why Weasel hadn’t noted the complaint in the log. I knew damn well I hadn’t read anything about a possible drug dealer lurking in the parking garage. Had Weasel approached Porter on his own? Called the cops? “Thank you very much,” I said. “The police may want to talk to you. Is that okay?”

“Of course,” the woman said, sliding a hand into the pocket of her jacket and handing me a card. It read, “Theresa Eshelman, Intellitot Day Care Center.”

“You run a day care?” I asked, surprised.

“For thirty years now.” She smiled. “We take kids from six weeks to twelve years old. The before- and after-school care market is huge in this area.”

So much for my assessment of her as a corporate bigwig.

More walkers had appeared, and I marveled at the number of people who got up BCOD—before the crack of dawn—to exercise in a mall of all places. Pondering who to approach next, I wondered why they preferred the mall to a health club or the great outdoors. Because it was free and warm and safe, I decided, gliding up beside an older gentleman in a wheelchair. He sat hunched forward, yellowgray hair straggling from beneath a navy blue knit cap. An afghan covered his lap, and strong hands propelled the chair down the slick hall.

“Sir,” I said, “I was wondering if you’ve ever seen this man?” I held up the photo of Robbie Porter.

The man looked sideways. A pair of twinkling blue eyes met mine.

“Grandpa!” I lowered my voice. “What in the world are you doing? And where did you get that?” I indicated the wheelchair.

“I’m scoping out the situation,” he said. “I wanted to observe the dynamics.”

I rolled my eyes. “I thought you wanted to make time with one of the walkers. How are you going to chat her up looking like that?” I gestured to indicate his frowzy appearance and, oh yeah, the wheelchair.

He waved a dismissive hand. “Don’t you worry about my love life, EJ. I’ve got a handle on it.”

Associating the words “love life” with my grandpa was just too strange.

“The wheelchair belongs to a friend. I promised to have it back by eight so she can get to her quilting class. What are you doing here at this hour?”

“The regular guy got called away and Woskowicz tagged me to do the midshift,” I explained.

Grandpa frowned and I noticed he’d even disguised his brows by covering their snowy whiteness with a light brown dye and—was it possible?—adding longer hairs. Who’d ever heard of brow extensions? I asked him about them.

He nodded proudly. “Of course. You use false eyelashes and separate the lash hairs from the strand, work them in among your natural brow hairs, and glue them in place with the tiniest dot of eyelash glue. It doesn’t take long at all once you get the hang of it.”

I shook my head. I’d bought my last makeup item—a lipstick—before I left for Afghanistan the last time and never used it, yet I had a grandpa who could do brow extensions. I looked at my watch and realized it was time to get back to the office. “Here.” I thrust my copy of Porter’s mug shot at Grandpa. “Ask around.”

In the office, I wrote a couple sentences in the online logbook about the garage encounter, noting down the license plate numbers, but leaving Jay Callahan out of it. I wasn’t sure why I didn’t mention him, but figured it served no purpose to have all the mall security officers looking at him sideways. I phoned the plate numbers into the Vernonville PD, relaying my suspicions about drug activity, and the desk sergeant said they’d run them. No promise to get back to me. I hung up with a sigh, frustrated at not having the resources I was used to: no forensics people, no fingerprint database, no access to phone records or addresses (other than those available to the general public), no way to check backgrounds or warrants and priors. I really wanted to run Jay Callahan and see what he’d been up to before he bought out Legendary Lola Cookies.

I pushed back from the desk, massaging my aching knee. The door swung open and Captain Woskowicz sailed in, rubbing his hands together.

“Damn cold out there,” he announced. “If I’d known the weather was going to be this crappy in Virginia, I’d’ve stayed in Newark.”

I couldn’t help wishing someone had kept him up-to-date on Virginia weather patterns. “Will Weasel be back tonight, or do you want me to work the midshift again?” I asked, logging off the computer.

His brows knit together. “Dunno. I haven’t heard from him.” Pulling out his cell phone, he dialed a number, listened, then flipped the phone closed in disgust. “Straight to voice mail again.”

“Where was he going?”

“Hell if I know,” Woskowicz said, looking at me like I’d asked him why Pluto wasn’t a planet anymore.

“Well, what did he say when you talked to him?”

“He sent an email. Said there was a family emergency. That was about it.” He shoved a hand in his slacks pocket and jingled the change. “Anything to report from last night?” His tone was tense, and I wondered what he was worried about.

I told him about the cars in the garage and my suspicions.

“You called the police?” he asked, blowing out a huge breath. “Why the hell did you bother them with it? Two cars in the garage? Big freaking deal. You didn’t even see an exchange of any kind.”

“I just asked them to run the plates,” I said. His irritation surprised me and made me question my decision. Had I misinterpreted what I’d seen? I remembered how the cars had peeled out when I challenged them. No, I decided, there was definitely something fishy going on. “Tonight?” I prompted Woskowicz.

“Nah. I’ll do it myself, give you a break,” he said, his tone switching from irritated to magnanimous.

“Magnanimous” and “Woskowicz” were mutually exclusive terms, and I stared at him for a moment, convinced he was up to something. “Great. I’ll take off then and see you tomorrow morning.”

“Yeah, whatever.” He clomped back toward his office.

Joel came in, looking morose. I had gathered up my stuff, ready to leave, but the way his shoulders slumped made me hesitate.

“Something wrong?” I asked when he flung himself into his chair with a sigh.

“No,” he said, but he kept his gaze lowered, fishing an apple and a large bottled water out of the backpack he usually hauled to work. He eyed the shiny yellow-green Granny Smith with loathing, then took a large bite, jaws working like a cow with its cud.

I sank back into my chair, watching him. His soft brown hair flopped over his brow, and his pudgy cheeks shone with the effort of munching the apple into oblivion. He swallowed and met my eyes sheepishly. “I’m on a diet.”