Die Buying (3 page)

And maybe I’d win the lottery. “Great,” I said. “Agatha?”

“Not yet,” he said, flipping his dreads over his shoulder. “You wouldn’t think it’d be so easy for a fifteen-foot snake to disappear, would you?”

A piercing scream cut through our conversation. I raised my brows. “Sounds like maybe someone found her,” I said. “I’ll let you know.” Giving Kiefer a two-fingered salute, I turned the Segway and purred down the hall toward the sound.

This was getting old. There was enough screaming going on at Fernglen this morning to make me think I’d wandered into a haunted house attraction or teen slasher flick by mistake. Why did a gecko or garter snake elicit so much fear? Maybe, I decided, because it was out of context in a mall, unexpected. If you were gardening or hiking through a state forest, you’d be half thinking you might see a lizard or snake, so it wouldn’t startle you as much. At the mall, the scariest thing you expected to see was the total on your credit card receipt.

Following the continued screeching, I hooked a sharp left into the Dillard’s wing. A young woman with a stroller stood halfway down the hall, arm outstretched and finger pointed rigidly at Diamanté’s display window. Her mouth yawned wide as she screamed, the sound changing to a gasping attempt at words when she saw me approaching. “It’s . . . it’s . . . it’s . . .” she huffed.

“It’s nothing to be afraid of, ma’am,” I said in my most comforting voice. A peek in the stroller showed me an infant in head-to-toe pink sleeping through her mommy’s hysteria. “It’s harmless. Just a—” I swiveled to look in the window, hoping to be able to say, “just an iguana” or “just a corn snake.”

But it wasn’t a corn snake or an iguana or even Agatha. It wasn’t a reptile at all. It was a man. A naked man. A completely naked, completely dead man.

I got the
woman to stop screaming by telling her she’d scare the baby, radioed Joel to tell him we had a “potato” (our code word for a really, really bad situation) at Diamanté, and asked him to call the Vernonville PD—again. “The situation’s contained and there’s no threat,” I said so he wouldn’t prod the Vernonville cops into sending the SWAT guys, “but they’ll want to send a detective.” Maybe four or five. And a crime scene team. And at least a sergeant, if not a lieutenant.

“Roger,” Joel said. “What’ve you got, EJ?”

I sighed, making a mental note to talk to him about radio discipline. “A potato,” I emphasized. “A hot potato.”

“Aah, you don’t want to say on the radio.” His voice conveyed his belated comprehension. “Do you want Tracy or Harold?”

They were the other two Fernglen officers on duty this morning. “Send them both,” I said. I’d put them on crowd control when they arrived, have them block off the whole wing. The store owners would whine, but it couldn’t be helped. “And you’d better tell Woskowicz.”

I studied the scene in the window more carefully after scanning the floor in front of it for footprints or evidence of any kind. Nothing. Diamanté was an upscale clothing boutique, and the display featured a pool scene meant to show off the latest in cruise swimwear. Mannequins wore bikinis that cost more than a week’s pay, a shimmer of blue cellophane represented the water, and the naked man sat on a webbed lounger, his head slumped toward his right shoulder. Wiry gray and black hairs matted his chest and sprouted in ones and twos along his shoulders and upper arms. Sunglasses covered his eyes but did nothing to hide the bullet hole dead center in his forehead. He was posed so his left arm lay along the arm of the chair and his hand cupped a pink acrylic glass with a tiny cocktail umbrella poking out. I didn’t see any other injuries or a gun. Noting the lack of blood in the display, I took a few photos and then turned back to the witness.

No more than twenty-two or -three, she sat stiffly on the bench, hands clasped in her lap, gaze fastened on the baby. She wore low-cut jeans, a yellow tank top layered over a lime green one, and orange Crocs. I introduced myself and got a whispered “Gina Kissell” in return.

“That’s a darling baby,” I said, hoping to set her at ease. “What’s her name?”

“Kaycee,” she said. She pushed the stroller back and forth with one foot.

“How old?”

“Two months tomorrow.” Gina looked up at me, and a faint smile flickered around her lips before disappearing when her gaze fell on the Diamanté window. “Is that man really dead?”

“Yes,” I said.

“Was he . . . murdered?” Horror fought with fascination in her voice.

Undoubtedly. I didn’t see any way he could have shot himself, disposed of the gun, and wiped up any spilled blood before dying in the lounger. “There’ll be an investigation,” I said. “Can you tell me what happened?”

“I don’t know,” she said, alarmed.

“How did you come to discover the body?” I clarified.

“Oh. Well, my mother’s been after me to lose some weight—it’s so hard after a baby, even though I only gained twenty-one pounds with the pregnancy—and so I’ve been walking here three times a week. Usually I come with Dawn, my sister-in-law, but she wasn’t feeling well this morning.” Gina twisted a tendril of straight black hair around her forefinger. “So, anyway, I brought Kaycee, and we hadn’t done one whole loop when I noticed . . .” She pointed at the store window. “At first, I thought it was a joke, you know, someone putting a naked mannequin in the window for a laugh. But then, when I looked again, I saw that it wasn’t . . . that he didn’t . . .” She stuttered to a stop.

“It’s okay,” I said, patting her shoulder. “Did you see anyone?”

“Just other walkers,” she said.

“Near here?”

“No, out in the main hall. There wasn’t anyone here but me and Kaycee. Can I go?”

“Not yet,” I said. The homicide detectives would want to interview her when they arrived. I didn’t tell Gina, but she could well be here until lunchtime. Baby Kaycee let out a squawk, and Gina bent to pick her up as the other two security officers on the day shift came around the corner.

I asked Tracy to make sure no one came into the wing. She nodded and headed off a couple of shop employees. I looked at my watch. Damn. Opening time. I motioned the other officer toward me, and he loped over, eager to see what was going on. Harold Wasserman was a retired engineer in his sixties who’d come to work for the Fernglen Galleria Security Office so he’d have a good excuse not to babysit his four-year-old grandsons. Twins. Short and slim with gray hair, he looked professional in the uniform, but I’d never seen him display much initiative.

“Hey, EJ, what’s going on?”

I briefed him quickly, motioning toward the body in the window, and asked him to make sure no one entered the wing from the Dillard’s at the far end. I also told him to ask any shop managers and employees on the wing to stay put until the police had done their investigating.

“They’re not going to like that,” he said, shaking his head. A whiff of cigarette smoke floated off him. Damn. I’d lost the pool. Thirty-nine days ago, he’d quit for the sixth time since I’d known him; the longest he’d made it had been sixty-two days. My bet this time had been fifty-five days.

“I don’t give a flip if they like it,” I said. “Just make sure they don’t come looky-looing, messing up the scene.”

As he trailed off, voices and the scuffing of several pairs of heavy shoes heralded the arrival of the police. Two uniformed police came around the corner with a tall, blond man in a gray suit. He scanned the corridor and immediately told one of the uniforms to call for more patrol officers. The other uniform started slinging yellow and black crime scene tape across the entrance to the wing. I walked to meet the detective.

He towered over my five-six, and I figured he must be at least six-three or six-four. Slim and in his midthirties, he had eyes that hovered between blue and gray, and a strong nose and jaw. Almost white-blond hair advertised his Nordic ancestry, and the cut of his gray suit and polish on his wingtips made him look more like the VP of a mediumsized company than a cop.

I held out my hand and said, “I’m EJ Ferris. Let me fill you in on what’s happened.”

His gaze slid over me, and I got the feeling he cataloged all the essentials in that two second glance: wavy chestnut hair with bangs, dark blue eyes, pale Irish complexion with a smattering of freckles, medium height and build with curves in the right places, limp in left leg. He’d be able to pick me out of a lineup.

“Detective Sergeant Anders Helland,” he said with no discernible accent. His handshake was warm and strong. “And I’ll decide what’s happened here.”

With that, he brushed past me, headed for Diamanté and the body. I stared after him, anger rising as heat in my face. Chill, I told myself. Be professional. I took long strides to catch up, not wanting to look like I was scurrying after him. From memory, I told him, “Gina Kissell”—I nodded toward the witness rocking Kaycee in her arms—“discovered the body at approximately nine fifty. She was here for exercise and saw no one in the vicinity. The lack of blood around the body makes me think he was shot elsewhere and brought here after he was dead. There are no signs—”

“Did you disturb the scene?” he asked, looking down his long nose at me. His brows, several shades darker than his hair, twitched together, and his eyes went as icy as a fjord in January.

“No. No one’s been in there since the body was discovered.” I glared at him.

“Well, thank God for small favors. At least you knew enough not to trample all over the scene.”

“I used to be—”

But he was turning away again, examining the scene in the display window, before I could tell him I’d been a cop. A real one, not just a mall security officer. I knew my anger was way out of proportion to the slight, knew that most of my coworkers wouldn’t have a clue about how to handle a murder scene and that Helland had lumped me in with them, but still his response stung.

More cops arrived, including a fortyish woman in a tan pantsuit who carried large cups in each hand. Steam and the smell of coffee escaped from the vents in the lids. “Wow, that’s effin’ creative,” she said, gazing at the body in the window and handing a cup to Helland. “What’s up with that, do you suppose?”

“Thanks.” Helland pried off the lid and blew on his coffee. “I’d say our murderer has a sick sense of humor.”

“Or he or she was really pissed at the vic,” I put in.

They both turned to stare at me, the woman’s brows arching as she looked from me to Helland. About my height, she wore sensible pumps and a chartreuse blouse with her pantsuit and a round-faced Mickey Mouse watch on her left wrist. Reddish brown hair corkscrewed around her face. When it became clear Helland wasn’t going to introduce us, I said, “EJ Ferris. I’m with the Fernglen Security Force.”

“Blythe Livingston,” she said with a smile. “Detective, Vernonville Police Department, by way of Boston PD.”

As if I couldn’t tell by her accent. I returned her smile and we shook hands.

“Let me have your key to the store.” Helland held out a peremptory hand.

“No.”

His eyebrows soared. “No?”

I could tell he wasn’t used to hearing that word. “No. None of the security staff or mall administration has keys. Only the tenants do. For liability reasons—the mall doesn’t want its security officers or staff vulnerable to accusations of theft. I’ll have to call the store’s owner and get her to let you in.”

“Do it.” Helland stepped to the grille and bent to examine the lock that bolted it to the floor. “Is there another door?” he asked, straightening.

“Around there,” I said, pointing to the small hallway to the left of Diamanté. It led to the restrooms, a janitor’s closet, an outside door for deliveries, and the service hallway that ran behind all the stores on this side of the wing.

Without a word, Helland disappeared down the hall.

Blythe Livingston made a “what can you do?” grimace behind her partner’s back and followed him.

I radioed Joel and asked him to get Finola Craig’s phone number and address. “Wait. Never mind,” I said, catching sight of the platinum-haired Finola apparently arguing with the cop blocking access to the corridor. A crowd of interested shoppers had gathered behind her and were craning their necks to see down the hall. No sign of reporters yet, but I knew they’d be along shortly.

I hurried over and convinced the patrol officer to let Finola in.

“Oh, my God, EJ, what’s going on? He said something happened at Diamanté?” Anxiety pinched her pale face with its heavy but tasteful makeup. Her eyes searched mine for some clue to what was happening.

“Opening time was twenty minutes ago,” I said, putting a hand on her forearm to keep her from dashing toward her store. “Where’ve you been?”

She flapped a harried hand. “Monica was supposed to open today, but she called at quarter to ten to say she was throwing up and couldn’t come in. It took me this long to cancel my dentist appointment, throw some clothes on, and drive over here.”