by Jo Goodman
Ramsey set her racquet on the floor and pressed her forehead against her knees. “Do you have any kind of filter?”
“Sure, but not between friends, and I’m your friend, so I’m telling you straight, if you’ll forgive the expression. You don’t see a troll when you look in the mirror, do you?”
Ramsey hesitated. “No. I know what I look like.”
“Say it.”
Ramsey’s response was reluctantly given. “I know I’m pretty.”
“Way to damn yourself with faint praise. This is like pulling teeth.”
Before Briony could remind her she was a dental hygienist so she knew a thing or two about tooth extraction, Ramsey said, “All right. I have the kind of looks that attract attention. Does that satisfy you?”
“Quasimodo had the kind of looks that attract attention. You come from the same general gene pool that spawned the likes of Katy Perry, Julia Roberts, and Anne Hathaway.”
Ramsey flushed Tripping the Light Flamingo and groaned softly.
“It’s true. Look at you, all folded up there like your legs aren’t twice the length of mine. You have fab hair, too, and you don’t even color it.” Briony paused a beat. “Do you?”
“No.”
“Damn. Then there’s that Audrey Hepburn neck, which frankly makes me want to hate you, except that your mouth has a sly way of curling at one corner which makes me like you enough to forgive you the swan neck.”
“Oh, for God’s sake. Will you stop?”
“Almost done. I don’t believe for a moment that you’re oblivious to your looks, only that you’re indifferent to them. Do you ever think about why that is?”
She did. Of course, she did. It was not a subject open for discussion, even with a friend as good as Briony had become.
“Our court time must be up,” Ramsey said. “Can we move to the steam room?” With luck there would be at least one or two women already in there. Briony might not use her filter with friends, but she could be depended upon to be discreet in front of others.
Three days later Ramsey stood at the customer service desk casually chatting with Sharon Wade while waiting for the man in camo fatigues to exit the store. This wannabe shopper was different from the last thief she stopped with camping gear. There was only a small possibility that this shoplifter intended to enjoy the outdoors. No, here was another twitchy meth head with stringy, dirty hair, sores on his face, bad teeth, no meat on his bones, and a vacant stare. She’d observed him pretending to look over the camp stoves. He chose two, which was one too many, and then he proceeded to load up seven camper propane tanks, lighter fluid, bleach, fifteen battery cards, two cast iron hobo pie makers, a pair of overalls, a package of socks, and three sleeping bags.
She told Sharon to get ready to make a call and stepped away from the counter as she watched Mr. Camo push his cart through a checkout aisle with no cashier. She sipped from her bottled water, eyes following him as he walked past. He held up a receipt when his path crossed the greeter. Fred Collins, seventy-two on his last birthday, smiled, nodded, and waved him on. Ramsey set her water bottle on the counter and gave Fred a thumbs up. The first set of doors parted for Mr. Camo and his cart. Before the second pair of doors opened to the sidewalk and parking lot, Ramsey caught up with Mr. Camo in the vestibule.
“Sir?” she asked politely, standing better than an arm’s length away. “Would you mind showing me that receipt I saw you hold up for Fred? It’s store policy when you don’t have any Ridge bags in your cart. Fred should have asked to see it, but you know, he’s practically a fossil and he forgets.” She stood still as the meth head made a slow examination of her person. His dark glassy eyes were not quite as vacant as they’d been earlier, but she still had an urge to wave a hand in front of his face to see if he could blink. “Sir? The receipt?” She nodded toward the slip of paper in his left hand. It was not unexpected when he suddenly crumpled the receipt and threw it at her. Ramsey didn’t flinch. She used one hand to neatly snag it out of the air and the other to grip the wire basket end of the cart.
Mr. Camo gave the cart a surprisingly strong shove in the direction of the outside doors, but Ramsey’s hold kept it from going straight. When the cart veered right, Mr. Camo had sense enough not to fight its momentum. He released the bright yellow handle and charged the doors, unleashing the powerful pent up energy of a sprinter leaving the blocks. Or at least that’s what Ramsey supposed he imagined he was doing. His exit was less dramatic than that. He hurried as best he was able, but without the cart for support, Ramsey noticed he was favoring his left leg. The hobble slowed him down. So did the trio of seniors who had just been dropped off by the Clifton transit van and were entering the store through the doors meant to leave it.
To his credit, Mr. Camo tried to dodge the women, but he ended up doing that peculiar confrontational dance that people do when they meet head on. He went right; they went right. He feinted left; they sidestepped left. Then everyone stopped to evaluate. He finally charged between two of them only to get tripped up by a three-footed cane. He went face down on the sidewalk just as the transit van pulled away and a Clifton police vehicle rolled up to take its place.
Ramsey couldn’t leave the cart unattended, so she dragged it behind her while she checked on the women. They were all of a piece, not quite sure what had just happened, but showed conscientious concern for “that poor man” sprawled on the sidewalk. Ramsey assured them he would be fine and invited them to have complimentary coffees in the Starbuck’s before they left. She waved to Fred who had watched the slapstick from his post and pantomimed what she wanted. Smiling widely in Southridge greeter style, Fred ushered the women inside and assured them arrangements would be made for their coffees and pastries.
With the women in Fred Collins’s gallant care, Ramsey hunkered close enough to Mr. Camo to visually check him for injuries, but not so close that he could make a grab for her.
“The bitch tripped me,” he said, turning his head in Ramsey’s direction. His chin scraped the sidewalk and he winced. “I’m gonna sue. I’m gonna sue you, the store, and that old bitch with the cane.”
“Well, you’re probably going to want to speak to your jailhouse lawyer about that.”
“You called the police?”
A shadow crossed Ramsey’s face as a familiar voice said, “Right here.”
She lifted her head. “You.”
Sullivan Day’s broad shoulders rose and fell in a helpless shrug. “Why do I always get the sense that you’re accusing me of something?”
“I don’t know. A guilty conscience?”
Sullivan pretended to give that some thought. “Nope. Don’t think that’s it.”
“Hey!” the meth head said. “Man, down here. Someone gonna help me up? I gotta get home. Just help me over to my car.”
Ramsey and Sullivan exchanged do-you-believe-this-guy glances.
“That’s his cart there?” asked Sullivan.
Ramsey nodded. “I watched him put everything in the basket and I haven’t let it out of my sight.”
A small group of onlookers had begun to gather. Sullivan waved them away. “Where’s your partner?”
“Called off sick. Paul didn’t replace him. I’m alone today.” She looked over her shoulder to see if Paul was on his way. She had expected him to show by now. Sharon should have alerted him immediately after calling 9-1-1. “He’ll be here directly.”
“All right.” Sullivan cast his attention to the man between them. “You have a name, sir?”
“John,” he said. “John Doe.”
“Okay, Mr. Doe, we can do it that way. Are you hurt?”
“In case you haven’t noticed, I ain’t moved. Most people would figure that means I’m hurt.”
“Where are you hurt?”
“My knee. My knee hurts something fierce. My chin. I think I cracked my head.”
Ramsey pointed to John Doe’s left knee. “He was limping before he fell. He scraped his chin when he turned his head. He put out his hands to pro
tect himself when he was going down. You can check them out. He might be a crack head, but I sincerely doubt he cracked his head.”
“I’m going to call for an ambulance, just to be safe.”
Ramsey nodded and then almost lost her hunkered balance as Paul Shippensmith’s take-no-prisoners voice thundered from somewhere behind her.
“Nothing to see here, folks!” he told the dawdlers who had been slow to move away when Sullivan waved them off. “If you’re going in, go now. I’m going to lock these doors and you’ll have to use the other entrance. If you were on your way out, then you should go to your car. Officer Day has the situation well in hand.” He flapped his arms, shooing, waving, but mostly just flapping, and the stragglers moved on. He nodded and waved at the employee waiting inside the store for his signal and doors were locked.
Ramsey saw that Todd Lancaster, whose usual job was collecting carts from the parking lot, was now acting as a human signpost, pointing new customers away from the goods and services entrance and directing them toward the doors at the marketplace or lawn and garden.
Paul stepped beside Ramsey. “Are you all right…?”
At first Ramsey thought he was speaking to her, but when he added “sir” she realized the inquiry was meant for the meth head. Under her breath, she said, “Nice, Paul. Real nice.”
“I heard that,” he said, regarding her from under a beetled brow. “I’ll get to you.”
Sullivan drew the manager’s attention to him. “I’m going to call the EMTs, but first…” He pulled out his handcuffs, bent, and fastened the bracelets around Mr. John Doe’s wrists. He noticed that the man’s palms were scraped and skinned, supporting Ramsey’s assertion that he had tried to protect himself from going down too hard. He moved off to one side and tapped the transmitter attached to his uniform’s shoulder. While he spoke to dispatch, he watched Ramsey and her boss step away from Mr. Doe and begin what looked like a heated exchange. Shippensmith’s voice still rumbled but he had turned the volume down. Ramsey spoke through a clenched jaw. Sullivan couldn’t hear a thing either one said.
When he returned, they stopped talking, but he didn’t think they were done. “Ambulance is on its way. Shouldn’t be more than ten minutes. There will be a patrolman waiting for him at the ER. I’m staying here. I need to take your statement.”
“Of course,” Ramsey said.
Paul set his mouth in a flat line and merely nodded.
Except for an aggrieved protest now and again from Mr. Doe, they waited in silence. Sullivan spoke briefly to the EMTs as they rolled their patient into the bus. John Doe had his rights read to him and was now handcuffed to the stretcher. Once the ambulance was off, Sullivan moved his car to a parking space and went to meet Ramsey and Paul in the loss prevention holding room.
He took a chair at the table opposite Ramsey. “Where’s your boss?”
“Coffee run. As much as he drinks, he should take it intravenously. He’s bringing you a cup.”
“Great.” Sullivan shifted his gaze from Ramsey to the closed door and then back to her. “Listen, before he gets here, I need to say it was pretty foolish of you to tangle with that guy.”
“I never touched him. There was no tangling.”
Sullivan heard nothing defensive in her tone. She was simply stating a fact. “All right, no tangling, but you’ve been doing this long enough to at least suspect he was high. And if he’s not a cooker, then he was stealing that stuff for someone who is. The stoves. Lighter fluid. Batteries and bleach.” He glanced at the cart angled in one corner of the room. “I see jeans.”
“Overalls. I watched him pick them out. They’re not his size. Just cover for the stuff he really wanted, or maybe he pinched them on an impulse. He was twitchy.”
“That speaks to my point.”
“It spoke to Paul’s point as well.”
“Ah, so that’s what he was saying to you while I was talking to dispatch.”
“Yeah.”
“And?”
“And no worries that I’ll do it again. I’m fairly certain he intends to fire me after you take my statement and leave.”
Sullivan frowned. Twin creases appeared between his dark eyebrows. “He said that?”
She shrugged. “He didn’t spell it out, but I’ve known him long enough to suspect he’s considering it. He doesn’t want to let me go, not really. That’s why he’s so mad. He’s knows I’m good at what I do, but foolish wasn’t how he described what I did today. He called me fucking stupid. Not what I did, but what I am. Fucking stupid.”
“You probably scared him out of his mind.”
Ramsey looked doubtful. “Liability scares him out of his mind. He doesn’t want to be sued. The Ridge stores don’t like that. They also don’t like their employees intercepting meth heads.”
Straight-faced now, Sullivan said, “That supposes you suspected he was one.” Ramsey stared at him, initially in some confusion. He stared back, unblinking. He saw the moment she understood what he was saying. Her nod was barely perceptible, but he was looking for it. The door opened. He was now her co-conspirator, or she was his. Regardless, Sullivan Day was satisfied. He looked up as Paul entered the room, greeted him with a smile that was at once coolly professional and warm in a personal way.
Paul nodded, kicked the door closed with the heel of his shoe, and then offered Sullivan a cup. “It’s black.” He dug into a pocket for some creamer cups and sugar and sugar substitute packets. “Here,” he said, tossing them onto the table as he sat. “I didn’t know how you take it.”
“Cream only.” Sullivan removed the lid on his coffee cup, opened two creamers and poured them in.
Paul pushed a bottle of water toward Ramsey. “Sharon gave this to me. She said you left it on her counter.”
“Thanks.” Ramsey used her forearm to scoop the bottle toward her, but she didn’t open it.
Sullivan took out his phone. “Is it all right if I record this? I’ll take notes, too, that you can sign here. When the recording’s been transcribed, I’ll let you know so you can come by the station to sign it.” When they agreed, he turned on the recorder, identified himself, the time and place, and the other people in the room, Ramsey as the witness to the crime, and Paul Shippensmith as an observer to the proceedings.
Sullivan knew that giving a statement was familiar territory for Ramsey. In the course of a week, she might easily bring ten to twelve shoplifters into the holding room to wait for the police. She was used to making her statement while the guilty party interrupted her with curses, name-calling, lies, and now and then made a lunge for her or tried to kick her under the table. He’d observed the lunging on two occasions, and while he acted quickly to halt the assault, Ramsey reacted even quicker to avoid it. She darted out of reach with the swiftness of a hummingbird and then calmly returned to her seat when the danger had passed. Sullivan didn’t think that she blinked an eye.
She spoke calmly, choosing her words carefully, thoughtfully. He noticed she seemed to be ticking off the timeline of events by tapping her fingertips against the tabletop. She had long slender fingers, no rings, buffed nails, trimmed short, with clear polish over them that caught the light as they tapped. He wished her statement were longer. He liked her voice, wanted to hear more of it. Then he remembered he would have the recording. Okay, that was a little creepy. He cleared his throat as if that would clear his mind, scribbled a few more notes, and then pretended to study what he had written.
“Here we are,” he said, looking up to hold Ramsey’s chocolate brown eyes. “You described the man who identified himself as John Doe as preparing for a camping trip. How did you draw that conclusion?”
“He spent a lot of time selecting items in Aisles Twenty and Twenty-one. That’s where all the outdoor leisure products are. He chose the camp stoves, sleeping bags, hobo pie irons. It seemed reasonable to assume he was planning a camping trip.”
Paul interrupted. “There are, what, six propane tanks? What did you think he was going to do
with six propane tanks?”
“Seven,” Ramsey said. She did not look at her manager. She kept her gaze focused on Sullivan. “It occurred to me that he was in charge of getting supplies for a gathering, maybe a family reunion camping weekend.” She ignored Paul when he sputtered in disbelief. “Mr. Doe seemed nervous, which is what drew my attention in the first place.”
“Nervous?” Paul said, sitting straight up. “Is that what you’re calling it?”
“Well, I thought he might have some sort of neurological condition. Like palsy.”
“Are you serious? The man’s a tweaker and you know it.”
“I don’t know it,” she said calmly. “Store policy is clear on the matter of engaging customers suspected of being high. I did not suspect Mr. Doe of anything except poverty, poor hygiene, and the possible intent to steal.”
Paul snorted. “Did you knock him down?”
Ramsey gave a visible start and whipped her head around to look Paul in the eye. “No. I did not knock him down. I never touched him. Weren’t you listening when I explained that John Doe tripped on Mrs. Sampson’s cane?”
“I heard you. I heard everything you said. I have to be skeptical to protect the store.”
“And your job,” said Ramsey.
“You’re too damn right, and I’m not apologizing for it. Do you think the Ridge Group Stores give a shit if you saved them five hundred dollars in merchandise, when the meth head might sue them for five million and cost them hundreds of thousands in legal fees?”
The hot color in Ramsey’s cheeks drained away.
Sullivan’s eyes swiveled to Paul Shippensmith. “It doesn’t sound as if Ms. Masters violated store policy.”
“That’s not for you to determine,” said Paul.
Sullivan closed his notebook but did not turn off the recorder. “Oh, absolutely. You’re right. I have her statement. And whether or not Mr. Doe is a tweaker or a camping enthusiast is something for the police to determine. Just a suggestion, but you’ll probably want to corroborate what Ms. Masters reported about John Doe tripping over the cane.” He stood, thanked Paul for the coffee and both of them for their cooperation. “I’ll be in touch.”
