Die Buying (18 page)

Taking our steaming cups, we found a table for two behind a display shelf laden with CDs and mugs. Helland took the lid off his cup and blew across the hot liquid. I took two long gulps of my hot chocolate, needing the infusion of sugar and fat.

“Okay,” Helland said, sipping his brew. “Here’s where you convince me not to toss you in jail and throw away the key. What the hell were you doing in William Wedzel’s house, standing over his dead body?”

“I wasn’t even in the house when the officers arrived,” I protested. “Captain Woskowicz hadn’t been able to get in touch with him, so I stopped by on impulse. It was on my way home.”

“Do you do a lot of things on impulse?” he asked, sounding genuinely curious. He seemed like the type who planned everything from A to Z, lived by to-do lists, and considered “spontaneity” a dirty word. I recognized that in him because I was much the same way.

“Not usually, no,” I admitted. “Unless you count joining the air force.”

“We’ll come back to that,” he said, “but for now I want to hear about Wedzel.”

I told him Weasel hadn’t worked his shift last night, that he’d emailed Woskowicz with some tale about a family emergency. “Only now I don’t think it was Weasel who sent the email,” I said. “When Woskowicz said he couldn’t get hold of Weasel and didn’t know if he was working tonight, I just decided to stop by. It didn’t seem Weasel-ish. He spends more time on his cell phone than I spend sleeping. His house was on my way home. When I saw his truck in his garage, I got worried for real and went around to check the back. I saw his foot through the window and had just called 911 when Officer Bruden jacked me up.”

“I’ll check on that,” he said.

I rolled my eyes. “Good.”

“Even if you did call 911, you could still have killed him. You might have been coming back to see if the body’d been discovered yet.” He kept his ice blue eyes on me as he took another sip of coffee.

“I couldn’t have killed him,” I said. “I was at work when it happened.” I crossed my fingers, hoping that was true.

“How do you know that?” he asked sharply, his eyes narrowing. “We don’t have a time of death.”

“He’s been dead awhile; I could tell from the smell.” At the memory, I swallowed hard to avoid gagging. “And his arm was limp when the officer checked for a pulse, so rigor had already gone off. That takes—what?—twenty-four to thirty hours, right?”

“Give or take,” Helland acknowledged.

The couple at the table next to us gave me an uneasy look and moved to a table at the far side of the coffee bar, muttering about “sickos.”

I ignored them. “Weasel worked his shift as usual on Tuesday night, so he left—alive—at about seven in the morning. Woskowicz got the email about Weasel’s ‘family emergency’ before noon yesterday, because he came in and told me I was working the midshift. So, he had to have been killed some time Wednesday morning, when I was at work, in full view of dozens of people.”

“Hmph,” Helland responded, apparently unimpressed by my reasoning.

“Since I’m no longer a suspect, does that mean you’ll reimburse me for the coffee?”

My question surprised a laugh out of him. He looked almost human with a smile warming his handsome features. I felt a flicker of attraction.

He sobered quickly. “So what’s your theory? I know you’ve got one,” he added in a resigned voice.

“Weasel saw something Sunday night,” I said promptly. I’d had a lot of time to think about it while I was waiting in the backyard. “He saw Porter’s killer or something that would identify the killer.”

“You mean Gatchel?”

I gave him a look. He was being deliberately obtuse. “No. It wasn’t Gatchel.”

Helland let that pass, looking at me from under half-lowered lids. “So, if Wedzel saw something, why didn’t he speak up during the investigation?”

I’d thought about that, too, and had an answer ready. “Either he didn’t realize the significance of what he’d seen, or, more likely, he decided to capitalize on his knowledge.”

“Blackmail?” Helland’s brows drew together. “Blackmailing a murderer is a dicey game.”

“Obviously.”

The implication hovered between us, unnamed but very much present. I buried my nose in my cup and inhaled the chocolate smell before draining the last sweet drop.

“Shit,” Helland muttered under his breath, clearly pissed off that his closed murder case had just been reopened. He glared at me as if it were my fault. “You’ve got whipped cream on your nose.”

After Detective Helland dropped me back at my car with an order to sign my statement at the station later, I called Captain Woskowicz to let him know about Weasel.

“Damn,” he said after a moment’s silence. “What am I going to do about the midshift?”

Mr. Sensitivity. “Did Weasel have any family?” I asked, thinking about the wagon in the backyard.

“How the hell should I know?” Woskowicz said. “It’s the police’s job to notify them.”

“I know that,” I said, controlling my temper with an effort, “but I thought we might want to send a card or flowers.”

“Weasel wasn’t a flowers kind of guy,” he said.

He had me there, although I rather thought the flowers were meant for bereaved family members rather than the deceased. I let it go, planning to look up Weasel’s data when I got back to the mall. I’d buy a card, at least, and pass it around for everyone to sign.

“Now I’ve got to hire another officer,” Woskowicz grumbled, hanging up without saying good-bye.

I drove home slowly, battling fatigue. My body clock was all messed up. I wanted to power through the day, rather than taking a nap, though, so I could sleep normally tonight and get back on schedule. Fubar was nowhere to be seen when I entered the house, but a small rodent leg of some kind by the cat door told me he’d been by. Picking the leg up with a paper towel, I disposed of it outside, then came back in for a long shower and a change of clothes. As I pulled an orange sweatshirt over my head, I wished I had access to Weasel’s computer and phone records. I knew the police would check them and wondered if they held any clues to his murder. If, as I suspected, he’d been blackmailing Porter’s killer, how had he contacted him or her? Could he have been stupid enough to arrange for a payoff at his house, or had the killer tracked him down? Nothing about Weasel’s death was staged; the killer left him where he’d fallen, not bothering to “display” him as he had Porter. That led me to believe we weren’t dealing with a serial killer with some sick mental pathology; we were dealing with someone who was really pissed off at Porter and who needed to kill Weasel to tie up loose ends. Someone ruthless. Whoever it was hadn’t killed in a fit of passion—he or she had planned it, working out the logistics of getting Porter’s body to the mall and into the Diamanté window.

As I was trying to figure out what Weasel had seen Sunday night—surely not the murderer lugging Porter’s body through the mall or he would have called it in—the phone rang. Squeezing water out of my hair with a towel, I picked it up. “Hello?”

At first all I heard was nasal breathing. Then, “Is this Officer Ferris?” The voice was male, youngish, hesitant.

“Yes. Who’s this?”

“I hear you’ve been looking for me.”

Robbie Porter! “Ro—”

“Don’t say my name! I need to talk to you. I know who murdered my dad.”

I caught my breath. “You need to go to the police.”

“I can’t. I’ve got a sheet. They won’t believe me. Besides, they’re looking to shut down my entrepreneurial activities.” A weak laugh ghosted over the phone.

Translation: he thought they’d arrest him for pushing drugs. “I don’t care about your business dealings.” Ooh, bad choice of words. “Just tell me what you know about your father’s murder.”

“Tonight. Ten o’clock. You know where. Come alone. If I smell a cop, I won’t show.”

“Wait! I—”

But he had hung up. I stared at the phone until it emitted an irritated beep to tell me it was off the hook. I replaced it on the cradle.

Clearly, Grandpa and I had struck a nerve when we showed his photo around this morning. Someone we talked to had passed the word to Robbie Porter. I thought briefly about calling the police. Helland would certainly want to know that Porter’s son had been in touch. But if I called him, he’d take over the meet and maybe scare Robbie away. I didn’t want to call Helland, I admitted to myself, because then I’d lose my chance of finding the killer and presenting the solution to Helland, gift wrapped. Grandpa! I could use his help if I was going to meet up with Robbie Porter tonight. And why did the kid think I knew where to meet him? Somewhere at the mall, probably, but where? I’d figure that out later. For now, I needed to get hold of Grandpa Atherton.

A feathery sensation on my ankle sent goose pimples up my leg. I jumped and looked down to see Fubar sitting at my feet, twitching his tail. “You scared me, you dumb feline,” I said.

He looked pleased.

I couldn’t get hold of Grandpa, so I left a message and went back to Fernglen, wearing straight-legged jeans, a red henley shirt, and low-heeled boots. I was too hyped from finding Weasel’s body and getting Robbie’s call to sit around at home. I went straight to Merlin’s Cave, hoping to talk to Kyra. Luckily for me, if not for Kyra’s bottom line, no customers waited for her attention. She looked like a gypsy princess today in a red skirt embroidered with gold, an off-the-shoulder peasant blouse, and her hair kinked loosely around her shoulders. A dozen thin bangles circled each wrist. Spotting me, she hurried over and threw her arms around me.

“I just heard,” she said. “Are you okay?” She drew back and studied my face.

“Mostly,” I said. “It’s not like Weasel and I were bosom buddies.”

“Still,” she said.

“Still.”

Viewing a dead person, especially a person you know who died violently, takes it out of you. We went behind the counter, and I sat on a swiveling desk chair while she perched on the stool in front of the cash register. “I’m making you some tea,” she announced.

Oh no. Kyra was a health nut, and her tea invariably tasted like the inside of an old tennis shoe smells. She picked up a sachet loaded with twigs and leafy bits, and probably eye of newt or something similar, and popped it into a delicate china cup patterned with yellow roses. She poured bottled water into the automatic tea kettle and plugged it in, looking at me expectantly. I talked quickly, hoping to escape before the water boiled.

I told her about how I came to find Weasel. “How did you hear about his death?” I asked.

“Quigley emailed everyone. Just a short note about ‘a member of our mall family has passed on.’ ”

Water bubbled in the kettle, and she poured it into the cups. Steam rose in an odiferous cloud that reminded me of walking near a lakeshore after there’d been a fish die-off. Kyra took a long, satisfied sip of her tea and raised her brows at me. “I’m letting it steep,” I said, launching into an account of my phone conversation with Robbie Porter.

“What did the police say?” she asked. When I stayed silent, she leaned toward me. “You did call them, right?”

I gave a tiny shake of my head.

“EJ! What are you going to do? Meet up with this drug dealer?” Her strong brows drew together.

“He said he wouldn’t show if there were police around. But I won’t go alone,” I said, forcing myself to sip the tea. It was bitter, but not as nasty as I’d expected and I found the warmth soothing. I took another cautious swallow. “Isn’t tonight your hot date with Mr. Lola’s Cookies?” I asked to distract her.

“It’s not really a date-date. Just a ‘welcome to the mall’ drink.” She winked. “Now, who—”

A customer walked in, interrupting Kyra’s question. She rose with a tinkle of bangles to ask if he needed help, and I was happy with the interruption since I knew she wouldn’t think Grandpa Atherton was an adequate backup for me. The young man with Kyra was going on and on about Area Fifty-One and a book he’d self-published about his journey to the Krill galaxy aboard an alien spaceship, so I waggled my fingers at her and left, headed for Diamanté.

Entering the well-lit
boutique, I looked around for Finola, but a woman I didn’t know came forward from the dressing room area. Muted voices told me customers were trying on clothes behind the slatted doors. “May I help you find something?” she asked with a professional smile. Younger than Finola by six or eight years, she was about my height but carried an extra twenty pounds, mostly through her bosom and waist. Great legs showed below the above-the-knee hem of a burnt orange skirt topped with a striped, cowl-necked sweater. A tousled bob highlighted with several shades of dark blond framed a face wider at the jawline than the brow. Heavy makeup almost concealed the scars left by long-ago acne along her lower cheeks.

“I was looking for Finola,” I said.

“Oh, she left early for an appointment. I don’t expect her back today,” the woman said, her gaze going past me to a pair of women who came in behind me. They beelined for a sales rack, and hangers clacked as they rustled through the dresses.