Читать книгу Death Goes Shopping - Jessica Burton - Страница 9

I was kneeling by the kitchen door lacing up my sneakers when Helen came downstairs the next morning.

“It's only six-thirty, for Crissakes,” she said. “Only people who can't sleep get up at six-thirty.”

Helen, for all her insistence on being at the peak of fitness, can't get up in the morning without a minimum two whacks at the snooze-button and a lot of dreadful muttering while she staggers around looking for the bathroom. Last month, she'd woken up and found herself out on the balcony three times, so I brought home some huge foam core arrows left over from a promotion and laid them out leading from her bed to the shower. She wasn't amused and, though she denies it, I know it cost me a couple of her home-cooked meals.

“I slept,” I said. “In fact, I slept like a baby, didn't toss once, didn't turn once. I feel great.” I stood up and bounced around a little to prove it. “I tell you, Helen, you've got to get a hot water bottle. Does the trick every time.”

“Why're your shoes on? It's hardly time to be leaving yet, or have I missed something here? And don't tell me George phoned already,” she said. “I know from experience that he won't be up yet, unless he worked all night.”

“No, I haven't heard anything. I just thought, seeing as I feel so feisty, that I'd start jogging with you today, and then we'll go on over to work and give George a hand solving these murders. I mean, how hard can it be? And you've been after me for a while to get exercising, so I figured this morning's the time.”

“Well, you figured wrong, cowboy.”

She went over to the coffee maker, plugged it in and started doing whatever it is you do with those things to make a pot of joy juice. Being a tea drinker myself, I've never even tried to figure out how it works. Even serving my guests instant coffee seems more civilized than trying to deal with something that spits and hisses.

She walked to the table, mug in hand, and dragged a chair over to prop up her feet. There was a band-aid on each heel.

“I'm not going jogging today. I'm too tired, my feet hurt and I'm too upset and, if that's not enough for you, I just don't feel like it. So put that in your smike and pope it, I mean your poke and smipe it. Oh, shit, you know what I mean.”

She drained her mug and got up to pour a refill.

“Besides, you just can't rush out and jog three miles, Jenny. These things have to be worked up to. First, you do warm-ups, and I don't mean with a hot water bottle. Then you walk a bit, you jog a bit and then you walk a bit more. Then you have a cooling down period. It's not a case of simply charging out the door and up the road, you know. There's an art to jogging, and I'm not in the mood to show you today, so just forget it.”

“Okay,” I said.

On a driving trip through Texas last year, I'd noticed the highway signs read “Don't Mess With Texas.” Dealing with Helen in the morning is often like that, so I just picked up my knitting and went through to the front room to wait for George's phone call.

When the phone rang, it wasn't George but a desk sergeant telling me to meet Inspector Anderson at eight o'clock at the west entrance of the shopping center.

I got there a few minutes before the appointed time and drove around the parking lot to scope it out. There were a couple of police cars at the main entrances, and I saw two media vans, but not much else was going on. It just looked like a typical Sunday morning, mostly quiet and deserted, since the shopping center doesn't open before noon on Sundays.

I guess the police had stopped any sightseers from nosing around, but the word was sure to have spread by now. They'd be here in droves later. Somebody else's trouble always acts like a giant magnet, and it was a sure bet that lots of people who turned up today would be the same ones that couldn't wait to leave yesterday. Whether they'd get inside or not was another story.

I found George talking to a couple of his men just outside the doors at the west side of the parking lot. He beckoned me over and introduced the men as Detectives Hobart and Bartolo.

They were both about my height, five-foot-eight give or take, and just about as skinny, although I sensed a wiry, controlled strength in both of them. Dressed in matching navy blue blazers and grey slacks, they each had dark, curly hair styled in what could only be a regulation cut, and they both wore black, solid-looking shoes polished to the nth. Pete and Repeat, I thought. They were so alike, there was no way it was accidental. I was tempted to take them home and stand them on the mantle.

I swallowed hard. “Pleased to meet you, Detectives,” I said. “I'm Jenny Turnbull, Promotion Director for Rosewood. I take it you're working on our shooting?”

One of them said “Ma'am”, and the other one touched his head in a kind of salute.

They both had better-than-average good looks, but the more I looked at them, the more I felt a menace in their similarity, as if they were saying “if one of us doesn't get you, the other one will.”

“Well, Jenny,” said George. “What's this about? I got a message that you have urgent information about what happened here yesterday?”

“Well, I don't know if it's directly related to the shooting. Probably not, but here it is.” I launched into the story about my meeting with Dick Simmons to the three of them. When I got to the bit about his promise to “fix the whole fucking mall”, three pairs of eyebrows went up, and Pete and Repeat looked at each other.

Halfway through my recital, George shoved his hands in his pockets, and by the time I finished, the skin on his normally handsome face had tightened, and his mouth was a thin slash.

“His address?” His voice was terse and came through his teeth.

“I don't know,” I said. “I didn't ask. I just told him to come back on Monday.”

“You suggesting we wait till Monday to speak to this man, Miss Turnbull?”

Uh-oh, he's getting formal, he must be really angry, I thought. Play it straight here, Jenny.

“Of course not, Inspector,” I looked up at him, way up. “I'm simply telling you I didn't ask for his address, but it's probably on his repair ticket. Gord Jenkins'll have that. I brought the tenant emergency list with me.” His hand appeared and darted out, grabbing the list. “Gord's home phone number's on it.”

George shoved the paper at Hobart hyphen Bartolo and jerked his head towards a car sitting at the curb.

“Get Jenkins and then get Simmons. I'll be in a meeting for one hour. Have them waiting when I get out.”

He turned and walked off without so much as a glance or a word in my direction. Determined not to walk behind him, I got back in my car and circled the lot a few times before parking and going upstairs. I'd seen George in a snit before. It wasn't pleasant, and even though I was willing to concede it might be somewhat justified this time, I didn't want to be in his line of sight before he'd had time to get over it.

The management offices boast a large conference room off the main suite with seating capacity for sixteen around a solid teak table. The far wall, facing the door, is corkboard, and an architect's floor plan of the Food Court was pinned to it.

Someone had been in and set out filled water jugs, glasses, paper and pencils. Two coffee pots were full and sitting on warming rings on a credenza off to one side, with three plates of donuts beside them.

Bob Graham, Keith Armstrong and Anderson were already in the room, standing talking at the far end of the table. Helen came in just after I sat down. Her uniform, grey slacks, navy blazer and snow white shirtblouse looked particularly crisp this morning. She walked over without a glance at George and sat in the chair next to mine, handing me a brown paper lunch bag.

“Here's a couple of blueberry muffins. I made them just after you left.”

“Thanks, Pocahontas,” I said. And we were back on track.

“Who else is coming?” she asked.

“I'm not sure,” I said. “I thought it was just the four of us and George, and we're all here, so I've no idea what the holdup is.”

“How did your appointment go? What did he think about your shoe man—what's his name again?”

“Simmons. Dick Simmons. Let's just say I'm not your Inspector's favourite person at the moment.” I told her what had happened outside and about Pete and Repeat being dispatched like a couple of hound dogs, which I guess, in a way, they were. “It really was stupid of me not to have remembered it sooner though, I'll give him that.”

“Don't worry too much about it, Jenny. I know Hobart and Bartolo, and they're quite a team. If there's anything strange about Dick Simmons, they'll know it three seconds after they find him.”

“Trust me, Helen, there's plenty strange, but who knows whether it's got anything to do with the shootings.”

I looked up in surprise as the door swung wider, and in walked Michael Leung with Jim Evans, manager of Hart's Department Store, and Steve Walker from Williamson's, our other department store. As major players in Rosewood City Centre, Graham must have felt they should be privy to the update meeting. I just hoped he wouldn't let them sit in on the strategy decisions we had to make after George finished, or we'd be there all day.

Leung owned and operated a small imported giftwares store on the lower level and, as president of our Merchants Association, he rightly felt he had a duty to uphold the interests of the small independent retailers whose operating procedures didn't always agree with those of the large chains and department stores.

There's a standing resentment in the shopping center industry about the weight a large, national tenant can bring to bear on the mall management, yet those same small retailers only lease space because the mall has the large retailers in it. They want to be in with the big guns, because they know the big guns bring in the customers. It's a kind of “damned if you do, damned if you don't” thing, when you're one of the little guys.

Bob Graham turned around and asked everybody to sit down. As usual, he was dressed in a three-piece suit and immaculately ironed white shirt. The rest of us tend to slack off a bit on a weekend if we're at work, but not Bob. He always looks like a page from some up-to-the-minute fashion mag. In his early fifties, Bob keeps his silver-streaked hair beautifully cut and styled, his nails manicured and always wears quiet but tasteful accessories. I call him 4M—Mr. Model Mall Manager— but never in his hearing.

But he's not a bad guy, and most of the time, he's a decent boss, as long as you remember the credo, “Get the Rent”, which also translates as “Maximize the Mall.” He figures even the floor space I use for promotions should be making money, and every now and then he calls a staff meeting to see if there's a way the Merchants' Association budget can be charged for it. It'll happen one day. It's only a matter of time.

Bob centred a notepad and pencil in front of him and cleared his throat.

“I've invited Mr. Leung, Mr. Evans and Mr. Walker to join us for the first part of this morning's meeting.”

I breathed a silent prayer of thanks. So far, so good.

“In Mr. Leung's capacity as president of our M.A., he'll be a big help to us in communicating with the other tenants, and Jim and Steve, as the two largest employers in Rosewood City Center will, I'm sure, be able to help us maintain as normal an operating policy as possible during the next few days.”

Dream on, I thought, looking at Leung, whose face had tightened at Bob's use of first names for the other two.

“And now I'll turn the meeting over to Duty Inspector George Anderson. Inspector Anderson is in charge of the official investigation into yesterday's unfortunate occurrence.”

“Good term for it,” Helen leaned over and whispered to me. “Two and a half murders, and he calls it an ‘unfortunate occurrence’.”

Bob looked our way. “Did you have something to say, Ms. Lemieux, before Inspector Anderson begins? Something we should all hear?”

“No, sir,” she said. “Please go ahead.”

“Thank you,” he said. “Inspector Anderson?”

George elected to stand and drew himself up to his full six foot four. He cut an impressive figure. Handsome, with blonde curly hair, dark brown eyes and a body you just wanted to stroke, I could see why Helen had been taken with him in the first place. His looks were enough to attract any woman, and I think that had turned out to be the problem. On a social level, George was quite charming and enjoyed the attention that invariably came his way. I guess he enjoyed it a bit too much to suit Helen, who's the one-at-a-time type.

After living with him for just over a year, she'd called me one day and simply said, “I have to come and stay with you.” I said okay, and that was that. Plain and simple. I hadn't asked the questions, and she hadn't volunteered the answers.

Because my job is a high-profile one in our community, I get invited to a lot of different functions, so I run into George quite often, and Helen stills sees a fair bit of him because of her numerous court appearances. From what I've seen recently, they appear quite relaxed and friendly with each other, so things must have progressed, but he always seems uncomfortable with me. I'm sure he believes I know all the intimate details of their relationship, and I can't think of a reason to tell him otherwise. It gives me an edge, and I like to have an edge.

George walked over to the wall, where the site plan of the Food Court was pinned up, and positioned himself in front of it. He looked for a minute at some papers he was holding, then put them down on the table.

“Good morning,” he said. “As Bob has told you, I'm the Duty Inspector in charge of the investigation into yesterday's shooting. As such, I'm here to give you a short update on what we've been able to determine took place yesterday and give you such details as we feel won't compromise our investigation. I won't speculate, and I won't answer any questions.”

This was going to be short all right. I opened my lunch bag and took out a muffin. 4M glared at me.

George put a finger on the Paul's Pizza location on the site plan. “At 11.33 a.m. on Saturday, October 31, my department responded to a 911 call from Helen Lemieux, your Security Chief. She reported that three people had been shot while sharing a table in the Food Court area of the mall, and she requested emergency response and assistance.

“Due to Ms. Lemieux's police background, she knew the importance of securing the area, and using her own staff, immediately blocked off the area in front of the particular food outlet, Paul's Pizza, where the shooting occurred. Thanks to her quick action, the crime scene was preserved as well as could be expected, considering it's a public area.”

Helen scribbled on a piece of paper and slid it to me. That won't hurt any when Jones comes calling.

I hear you, I wrote back.

George went on.