Читать книгу Death Goes Shopping - Jessica Burton - Страница 8

“Okay, Helen, what's the scoop?”

She was over by the stove. “Just let me finish here, and I'll fill you in.”

I'd been home since just before eight o'clock, impatient for the latest news and knowing Helen, with her inside lines to the cop shop, would have it. She must have been talking to somebody, because it was midnight now, and she'd only been home about twenty minutes.

George Anderson, the Duty Inspector in charge of the “incident”, as it was being called for now, had finally permitted people to leave the mall about seven.

Talk about a long, tiresome day.

The coroner had arrived at the Food Court about one-thirty and declared two of the victims, one male, one female, dead at the scene. The third, a young twenty-something man, had been rushed to hospital earlier, accompanied by a police escort.

I thought, and I'm sure most of the people around me did too, that once the bodies were gone, we'd be allowed to leave.

No such luck.

At three, another team of officers had shown up and started taking pictures of the Food Court. Helen managed to break away and join us for a quick bite. She said the second wave was the Identification Unit, whose job it was to photograph everything in sight, starting with the big picture as it were and going on to specific items. And boy, did they get specific. It took well over two hours for them to finish, then a flat cart was wheeled in and the six large, plastic trash bins that serve the food area were carted off.

“Why re they doing that, Jenny?” Joe asked.

“Gonna search them for the gun, I guess. I can't think of anything else they'd want them for.” I pointed over to the door behind the Pizza Place. “I saw three guys going in there while you were getting our lunch, so they're obviously searching along the back halls, too.”

While this was going on, everyone in the Food Court was questioned systematically to determine where they were when the shooting occurred. A few people, most likely the ones that were actually eating lunch when the murders happened, were led off, presumably to the witness room, for further questioning.

The atmosphere had become pretty tense by then. Any interest in watching the police and emergency crews do their job began to pall after a while, and restlessness set in.

The only smiling faces belonged to the Food Court tenants. Except for the Pizza place, they'd had a captive audience for lunch, and probably the best dinner hour ever, and I was certain the mall's four sit-down restaurants couldn't be too unhappy either.

Around three-thirty, after showing my business card to an officer and having Helen vouch for me, I was allowed to go back up to the office, escorted of course, to get my knitting. No point in wasting knit one, purl one time, but every few rows I'd stop and look over to where I'd seen Cathy's body. Death was unbelievable, incomprehensible. She and I had become quite friendly over the years during my visits to her wool store for supplies. How could she have been shot? Surely it was a mistake. Finally, I put the knitting back in the bag and just sat, thinking about the even larger implications of the day's events.

Any shooting in any public place is a tragedy that always grabs attention, probably because it underlines our own vulnerability. A seemingly random shooting in a major regional shopping centre was a disaster of immense proportions. The media would have a field day with this. Talk about negative publicity. Three people, not only gunned down, but gunned down in the busiest spot in the mall on the busiest day of the week, at the busiest time of the day. And all they were doing was eating lunch. Stir in the fact that the mall was full of kids at the time, and you've got a story tailormade for six-inch headlines. This would give us more coverage than my total budget for the year could buy.

My mind shrivelled thinking about all the fancy dancing it was going take to offset the ramifications of the events.

The mall's slogan is “Rosewood City Centre—Our Prices Are On Target.”

I got a quick mental picture of a cartoon showing one of our print ads. The caption read “But then, so are you.”

I got the knitting back out of the bag and started again, going faster this time.

At seven o'clock, the yellow tape came down, and the exodus began.

“Boy, look at them go,” said Roger. “Guess they're all sick of this place by now, huh?”

“I've had enough, too,” said Joe. “Okay if we leave, Jenny, or do you want to do the clean-up now?”

“Not bloody likely. Let's do it tomorrow,” I said. “There's been a management meeting called for nine in the morning, so if you guys can be here by two or so, we'll clean up then. Thanks, guys.”

“Bye.” They all stood up and were, in a word, gone.

I couldn't find Helen, Bob Graham or Keith, but then I didn't try too hard. The Information Booth staff had closed up and left and besides, I'd had enough. My knees were aching from their drop to the floor, and I'd started to think about Santa again. It was time to go home.

Now Helen and I were in the kitchen of my downstairs flat in the old house we shared. It had been the original farmhouse of the area before developers had moved in and built a subdivision around it. Tom, our landlord, had inherited the house from his father who had, in turn, inherited it from his father. Helen and I had subsequently inherited it from Tom— at least as temporary caretakers.

I'd dated Tom in a friendly, casual sort of way, a couple of years back, around the time he'd been finishing his doctorate on ancient languages with a special interest in Egyptology. An offer had come for him to take a five-year appointment in Luxor as a visiting professor, and he'd jumped at the chance, taking Helen and me out to dinner to celebrate.

“The only drawback is the house,” he said. “I'm uncomfortable about closing it up for that long, and even if I did close it, I can't afford to fly back and forth checking on it.”

“We'll look after it,” Helen and I said almost in unison. “We'll rent it. You won't have a care in the world.”

“Sweet Lord, you two are scary.” Tom dropped his fork. “I thought I'd got used to this talking in stereo, but I guess I haven't.”

“But you know,” he continued, “that's not a bad idea. My father always felt the house was haunted, though I've sure never seen any sign of it. But, if he was right, then you two are naturals.”

And so, after a bit of negotiation, here we are. We haven't seen or heard any uninvited guests or unusual activities, but there does seem to be a particular cold spot in the cupboard under the stairs—a cold spot that comes from nowhere, goes nowhere and does nothing. Occasionally, we take our cups of tea and sit on the floor staring at the cupboard, but we usually only get cold and, since we don't know what we're watching for, we just give up and go on about our business. Sometimes, when Helen's not home, I talk to my mother there.

Thanks to the clever planning of Tom's grandfather, there's a sun porch upstairs for Helen, a verandah downstairs for me, and Tom had converted the mud room off the kitchen into an extra bathroom, so there's no fighting over showers. An old carriage shed out back, for which I thank heaven daily, houses my '56 Chevy, but the house's ultimate decadence is the log-burning fireplace in the kitchen.

We've lived here just over a year now, and one of us is gonna have to marry Tom, because we don't intend to move out. Or maybe we can just slice him off a room.

Helen opted for the three rooms on the upper floor, saying the stairs would be good exercise for her which suits me just fine. I've got the downstairs rooms, and we share the large kitchen, which also suits me just fine. Quite often, when Helen has a day off, she'll take a cooking fit, and I come home to find the table set, a gourmet dinner ready and a bottle of Mountain Chablis on ice.

I'm a good enough cook, but my repertoire runs to dishes like meatloaf and chips, bangers and mash, and I only make a roast beef dinner as an excuse to have Yorkshire pudding.

So here I was, sitting in a rocker with my feet propped up on a kitchen chair and my knitting needles clicking along like a freight train. When I was a kid in Scotland, we travelled a lot by train. My sister and I drove our mother crazy chanting “Katy did, Katy didn't. Katy did, Katy didn't” in time to the rhythm of the wheels. Sometimes I find myself doing it now, when I knit.

My left knee had a bag of frozen corn niblets across it, and the label on the designer pouch covering the right one said “Peaches and Cream, Flash Frozen”.

Helen looked at my knees. Grinning, she patted the bags.

“Is this some kind of tribal medicine lore handed down through your family, Jenny?”

“For your information, smartass, it's First Aid 101—Ice packs for swelling and bruising. And just so's you know, the Scots had clans, not tribes.” I turned the bags over. “These are great because they mould right around my knees.”

“Your knobby knees,” she said. “I'll never understand why you're so skinny, given the junk you eat. As a matter of fact, looking at your legs now, I think we should tie knots in your nylons for knees.”

“Cute, Helen, real cute. Now, let's have it. I've been quivering for hours. If I knit any faster, these needles'll melt. What happened after I left?”

Helen carried a tray to the table and set down two mugs of tomato soup and a plate stacked with grilled cheese sandwiches. A little comfort food for a midnight snack, and a fire going. How could you hate it?

“I don't know if eating cheese at midnight's a good idea, especially nippy old cheddar,” she said, handing me a mug and a sandwich. “They say it gives you nightmares, you know.”

“Who's they'?” I dipped my sandwich in the soup and swirled it about a bit. “I'm looking around and I don't see any ‘they’.”

I bit off a chunk and dipped the sandwich again.

“Anyway, my nightmare's already booked, and it's probably going to be the same as yours.” I stared at my bit of sandwich. “You know, I can hardly believe Cathy Haggerty is dead. It doesn't seem quite real.”

“I know,” said Helen. “Just her luck to pick that table. I wonder who was there first, though I don't suppose it matters much.”

A shopping centre food area is like the setting for musical chairs. Customers walk around with their tray of food, and the minute they spot a seat, they're in it. Doesn't matter who else is there. It's enough that you found a stool. After all, you're not there to socialize, though some do. The principle is “fast in, fast out.”

“She was such a nice person and so helpful.” I couldn't let it go. “I was just in her store yesterday to see if the rest of my wool was in yet, this new stuff she put me on to. How can I be talking to her one day, and she's dead the next? She was going to order me a particular shade of green they've just introduced. I really need that colour now I've changed my whole pattern around.”

What Helen didn't know was that my current project is a Fair Isle sweater for her as a surprise Christmas present.

Cathy had called me at the beginning of September, excited about finding this new supplier.

“Jenny, you have to come down and look at this wool I've just got in,” she'd said. “You won't believe it. Pure wool, beautiful colours, a great price and the best part is they leave eighty per cent of the lanolin in, so it's not itchy. I'm telling you, this one's outstanding.”

Well, of course, one look and I was sold. What knitter can resist a brand new product? There's something about all those balls of virgin wool that reaches out to you. It's like looking at the eyes of dogs or cats in the animal shelter—they all say “take me, take me.”

According to Cathy, this knitting yarn was actually produced by a sheep farmer just a two hour drive from here. Apparently, he'd formed some kind of co-op with other farmers who shipped him their wool and he, in turn, baled it, sent it to Allentown, Pennsylvania, to get washed and then on to several different mills to be spun and dyed.

It had all the earmarks of a local success story, and the wool was indeed a quality yarn so, naturally, I bought enough for a sweater and was off and running on a new project—a project that had just suffered a sudden setback.

Oh well, I'll deal with it at the beginning of the week, I thought. If push comes to shove, I can always find the farmer. Getting back to the subject at hand, I took another sandwich.

“And that guy from the florist's, Gerry what's-his-name? I heard he was the other body, the one with the pepperoni. I never liked him much, what with his smarmy winking and gestures every time I walked past the store, but that's no reason to want him dead. God, was he even thirty?”

“Twenty-eight,” Helen said. “Gerry Menard. And you weren't the only one who didn't like him much, Jenny. Nobody did, now I come to think of it. He was such a jerk, and I'm convinced he used the florist's job as a front for other things, although I could never come up with something concrete enough to do anything about it.”

“Like what?” I sat forward. “You've never said anything about this before.”

“Remember that child shoplifting thing we had going in the spring? The one during the teachers' strike? I'm still convinced he was a major player in that game.”

For two months the mall had been overrun with kids, mostly kids from ten to thirteen years old. Mothers would send them over with a couple of dollars to get them out of the house for a few hours. What the mothers didn't realize was that, in addition to their couple of bucks, a lot of the kids came with a list of things to steal. Things that ranged from clothes to electronics to jewellery.

It was quite a professional setup—small scale but well organized. Most stores don't prosecute kids that young, and the entrepreneurs behind the scheme knew it. They even gave the kids a list of excuses to give their parents if the stuff was found in their room at home. The kids made pocket money, the middle man made a bit more and the final recipient got bargain prices.

“I just wasn't able to prove anything,” Helen went on, “but I'm pretty certain he processed the stuff the kids were stealing. I mean, how many twelve and thirteen-year-olds do you usually see going in and out of a flower shop? We watched that store like hawks, but never saw them exchange anything except conversation, and not a lot of that.

“I've never said anything, because it's still an open investigation. The police are having problems, because the parents don't want to believe their children would do such a thing, and the kids sure aren't talking.”

She put down her soup mug, stood up and rewrapped the bath towel she was wearing. Her thick black hair, still wet from the shower, made strange little patterns in the talcum powder on her shoulders. No recessive genes there.

“I guess whether Menard was involved or not is moot now, though, isn't it?” she continued. “And another thing, he was awfully tight with that guy who ran the liquor store. The one who was convicted last year of running the teen prostitution ring. They spent a lot of lunch hours together. Every time I spotted them with their heads together, I wondered what they were cooking up.” Helen sighed. “Anyway, that's all beside the point now. The liquor store guy's in jail, and Menard's dead. I gave George my Security Log for the past year so he could go over it. Menard's mentioned in it quite a lot, and coincidentally, so is today's other victim, Jones, the one in hospital. In fact, I'm more concerned about the trouble that's going to come from him.”

“Why?” I asked. “At least he's still breathing in and out.”

“And that's about all he's doing. Just before we went into a mini-meeting in Graham's office, my precinct sources told me, off the record, that it might be best if he just slips away. He got shot in the back of the head and, apparently, the doctors aren't predicting much of a future for him if he does survive.”

“Did you tell them that at the meeting?”

“Are you crazy?” she asked. “You know whose son he is, don't you?”

I looked at her. She nodded, and I knew.

“Oh, God. That Jones.”

“That Jones,” she agreed. “Stephen Jones Jr., whose father, Councillor Stephen Jones Sr., is the biggest thorn in the side of this shopping centre, what with his watchdog Citizens' Advisory Committee and his constant carping about inadequate security, inadequate lighting, ineffective management, etc., etc.

“Bob Graham was upset enough for one night and, who knows, medical miracles have happened before. No doubt his condition'll come out at the meeting tomorrow, but it won't be from my mouth.

“You know, of course,” she took another sandwich, a sure sign she was upset, “my job's been on the line a number of times due to Jones. He's never got over the fact that I banned his son for three months last fall. Remember I caught the little shit hassling the models in the fashion show? His remarks when they were on the runway were bad enough,” she said, “but fixing the tent so's he could watch them changing, specially after he'd just been warned, was too much.”

I nodded, thinking back to all the times the Councillor's son had caused us grief, then squirmed his way out of it because of his father's position. One of Helen's staff had caught him cutting a slash in the curtains of the models' change tent during the fashion show, and that was the last straw for her. He was out, she'd said, and told Bob if he overruled her because of Jones Sr., she'd quit. The Councillor had lost that one.

“Mind you,” Helen added, “the father thinks he's God's gift to women, so maybe the son comes by it naturally. God help any girl who gets caught up with him. In fact, I'm still convinced it was Junior who slashed my tires last month. Him or a couple of his buddies. Come to think of it, he's probably in the log book even more times than Menard.”

Helen's tires get slashed about five times a year. It's part of her job agreement that the mall management replaces them. The vandalism is usually done by kids who get banned or thrown out for a variety of reasons. The mall owners' policy is that anyone caught in the mall while they're under a ban is charged with trespassing, and they're pretty strict about enforcing it. The offender ends up in court, where he or she has to explain to a judge why the ban shouldn't be permanent. Unfortunately for Helen, she's the one who represents the owners in court so, as far as the culprit's concerned, it's her fault they're in trouble.

“The Councillor's latest kick is contract security.” Helen did a wicked parody of Stephen Jones Sr.'s high-pitched nasal voice. “'My wife works at that new mall north of here and they've got contract security and they don't have the problems you people do.' The fact that they don't have any customers, either, doesn't seem to factor in. He's only gunning for me 'cause of his kid. You can bet he's going to have a field day with today's performance.

“Asshole.” She hitched her towel a bit higher, “I still kick myself for not having his precious son formally charged with tire-slashing. I couldn't have proved it, but it might have cooled both of them down a bit.”

She got up and began picking up òur empty dishes. “Anyway, as you know, the cops finished up about six, six-thirty and other than George keeping a few people back for a second interview, most everybody cleared off home. I let my staff go half-an-hour or so later. No point in making any of them stay. The police left a team of people on watch overnight, inside the mall as well as out in the parking lot.”

“What kept you so late, then?” I asked. “Making eyes at Anderson again, are we? I thought that was finished.”

“Well, it was, but my mother always said you should never close a door you might want to go back through, and I'm going to need all the support I can get on this. If Jones Sr. gets his way, I'll be in deep shit for sure if these murders aren't solved and solved fast. I aim to use any sources I've got from my days at the cop shop, and old boyfriend or not, George is in charge of the case.

“Think about it, Jenny, if the shootings aren't cleaned up in record time, we'll be able to have a bowling tournament in the mall for the staff and the tenants, ‘cause there sure won't be any customers getting in the way. Have you thought what next week's going to be like?”

I put away my knitting, took the bags off my knees and stood up. “I can see the headlines now,” I said. “Something along the lines of ‘Shop Till You're Dropped' maybe or ‘Best Buys in Town—If You Live Long Enough?' Maybe I could run a special ‘Dodge the Bullet and Win a Pizza’ promotion. That would really have them lined up at the doors, don't you think?”

“God, that mouth of yours just keeps on going, doesn't it? That's not funny. Two people dead, one nearly, I've had a rotten day, I'm exhausted and you're trying for laughs?”

“It's just self-preservation.” I put the corn back in the freezer. “That's all. Self-preservation. If I don't laugh, at least a little, I'll cry. My day's been rotten too, you know. I might not have had to deal with bodies and cops and coroners, but I lost Santa, and that's just as bad.

“What's more, who do you think the tenants are going to come after, starting Monday? And when you've answered that, who do you think Graham's going to throw to the press, starting tomorrow? And then, when you've answered that one, tell me who's going to have to come up with something to get the fucking customers back in the mall?”

“Suzy Q, that's who,” she said, and we both burst out laughing. “Okay, that's it. If we're laughing at a double murder, it's time to hang it up. I'm for bed.”

She put the dishes in the sink and, limping a bit, headed for the back staircase that went from the kitchen up to her bedroom.

“What's wrong with your feet?” I asked.

“Just my new shoes pinching a bit. Wouldn't you know I had to wear them today of all days?”

I stared at her. I was suddenly very cold.

“What's wrong, Jenny?” she knew immediately something had changed.

“Shoes. My God, Helen, shoes.”

“What about shoes?”

“There was a man in my office this morning, Dick Simmons. He wanted his shoes fixed. He was furious at Gord in the shoe repair shop. Didn't like his repair job. What with Santa and the pumpkins and the shootings, I forgot all about it till now. The conversation got pretty ugly, and he made threats, Helen. He threatened to shut down the centre. 'Fix your whole fucking mall' I think was the way he put it.”

“Do the police know about this?”

“No, I told you, I forgot till just this minute.”

“Didn't they question you in the Food Court? I thought they talked to everybody. Surely you would have remembered it then?”

I shook my head. “I guess they missed me when I went upstairs to get my knitting. Anyway, that doesn't matter. I've remembered it now. I figured he was just blowing steam and would cool down over the weekend. He's going to bring the shoes back on Monday. At least, that's what I told him to do. I thought about him for a flash when I saw all the cops around the bodies, but it seemed so absurd, I guess I just forgot about it.”

“It does seem a bit extreme for a customer complaint, but who knows? Anyway, it's not up to us to make that judgement.” She picked up the phone. “We'll tell Anderson and let him deal with it. I doubt we'll get him tonight, though.”

I hauled my hot water bottle out from under the sink and ran the tap. If ever there was a night I needed it to hug, this was it. Maybe I'd put on a flannelette nightie too, and maybe those nice, soft bedsocks I'd knitted last year. A girl needs all the help she can get when things are getting away from her.

“Well, I didn't think so.” Helen hung up the receiver. “But I left a message for George telling him it was urgent he talk to you tomorrow before the meeting. That way he can get somebody on it first thing.”

“Should I go to the station?”

“He'll be at the mall. From what I gathered earlier, he's going to give us an update on the situation as it sits now. At least he'll give us as much information as they're prepared to release. Probably won't amount to much more than we know already.

“Well, goodnight, Jenny. Make sure the fire's tamped down before you go to bed.”

She headed for the stairs for the second time, then stopped and turned, a hand on the banister and one foot on the bottom step. “What do you mean you lost Santa?”

I looked at her for a minute then just closed my eyes. “Not now, Helen. I'll tell you tomorrow.”