Pearls Gone Wild

by Diane Vallere

  Occasionally the scents of chocolate and cinnamon floated past me. Even though Cat’s gate was in place, it was hard to get away from the ambiance.

  By the time I finished, the cases were full with a meticulously placed assortment of pearl necklaces, bracelets, and earrings. It wasn’t the valuable merchandise that Cat had planned to display, but a part of me wanted to see if a smash and grab happened again tonight—after the murder—and if the thieves really knew the value of what they were stealing. All pearls look lustrous by night, even the knock-offs.

  I locked what was left of the back stock in a drawer behind the counter and went looking for Dante. I found him outside Cat’s office. “Are you ready to leave?”

  “One last thing to do. Install a camera.”

  “The mall has cameras.”

  “Outside, and we won’t be able to see what they see. This way, we’ll have our own surveillance.” He went inside the office and I followed.

  Retail store space, when empty, was basically a giant box. Profitability was estimated by the square foot, and after taking out stockroom and fitting room space, there was little left for Cat. Her office was about eight feet square, with a tall filing cabinet set up along the wall she shared with the camping store next door. Bookcases filled with catalogs and binders of sales figures lined the back wall. Two chairs rounded out the furniture assortment: one behind and one in front of the wooden desk. Add in Dante and me, and the quarters were very, very close.

  Dante dropped a duffle bag onto the chair in front of the desk. After unzipping it, he pulled out a couple of computer tablets.

  “What are you going to do with those?” I asked.

  “Program them to take pictures every five minutes. We’ll see if there’s anything suspicious going on around here.”

  “But you won’t know if anything happens until you take them down and look at the pictures. By then the damage will be done.”

  He propped himself up against the desk. “If we want to find out who’s doing something they shouldn’t be doing, this is the best way to do it. We’re not in this to strike back. If security was doing their job, this never would have happened.” He tapped the screen a couple of times. “For all we know, they might be in on it.”

  “Okay, so what do we do with it?”

  He finished tapping and handed me the tablet. “Put this on the second shelf so it’s aimed at the door.”

  I held out my hand, and he set the tablet in my palm. When his fingers brushed mine a shock passed between us. We both pulled away and the tablet fell to the carpet.

  It landed right next to my rubber rain boot. He stooped to pick it up. I couldn’t help but notice how close he was to my legs. When he stood back up he glanced down to my pink suede knee patches on my pants, then up to my face.

  He handed the tablet to me again. I went behind Cat’s desk and climbed on top of it, and then positioned the tablet on top of the filing cabinet. I arranged a plastic plant on one side and a short stack of catalogs on the other, hoping to conceal everything but the lens. I probably fiddled with it longer than necessary because I was going to have to ask Dante’s help to get down and wanted to postpone that moment as long as possible.

  “I think it’s in place.” I turned to face him, but was still standing on the chair. “Can you help me?”

  “Sure.”

  I expected him to hold out a hand and guide me to the floor. I didn’t expect him to wrap an arm around my knees and throw me over his shoulder.

  He carried me out of Cat’s office and then bent down and lowered me onto a large tufted ottoman. I pulled my sweater down and smoothed the creases out of my corduroys. Dante seemed to enjoy my embarrassment a little too much.

  “The tablet will take a picture every five minutes for twenty four hours.”

  Without stopping to do the math I exclaimed, “That’s like a thousand pictures!”

  “Two hundred eighty-eight per tablet.”

  He went into the office and returned with an empty duffel bag. We moved the cleaning equipment to the exit. Dante pulled the SUV the curb and we packed everything in the back.

  “My car’s in the back row,” I said.

  “Climb in. I’ll give you a ride.”

  He drove to my small convertible, sandwiched between two minivans. They hadn’t left much space for me to get in or out, but that wasn’t my primary concern.

  No, I was more concerned with the knife protruding from the now completely flat back tire. Suddenly Cat’s troubles didn’t seem so unique.

  10

  SATURDAY EVE

  The two of us stared at my tire. I didn’t know what Dante was thinking, but the thoughts running through my head were built of a string of profanities that would have made Eddie proud.

  “Call the police,” Dante said.

  “The police? They’re not going to change my tire.”

  “I’ll change your tire.”

  “I can change my own tire.”

  “I’m sure you can. And I’m almost willing to say yes and let you freeze your butt off because it’s sometimes fun to watch you think you can do everything yourself, but it’s late, this is vandalism, and we need to get back to check on my sister. So you call the police and I’ll get started on the tire.”

  “You wouldn’t believe how polite the cops were the night we found George. Watch this. I bet they offer to come out and give me a ride home.” I pulled the Nick Phone out of my handbag and called the police. “I’d like to report an act of vandalism.”

  “In progress?”

  “No, in my tire. Somebody stuck a knife in my tire.”

  “Is the perpetrator still there?”

  “No. I came out to my car and there was a knife in the tire.”

  “At your residence?”

  “No, at the Ribbon Designer Outlets.”

  “You can fill out a police report online. Do you have a pen?”

  “A pen? For what?”

  “I’ll give you the website address.”

  “I’ll find it on my own.” I hung up. “Something’s up with the police department,” I said to Dante.

  “Why? Are they treating you like a law-abiding citizen?”

  “I am a law-abiding citizen.” I shoved the phone into my pocket. “Why don’t you just drop me off at Cat’s? I’ll deal with the car tomorrow.”

  He stood up and studied me. “How come you’re not spending the night with your boyfriend? Trouble in paradise?”

  “Paradise is great. Nick’s in Italy. I told Cat I’d stay with her for a couple of days.”

  “Sounds like we’ll be getting cozy.”

  “‘We’? I thought you kept an apartment in Ribbon.”

  “I sublet it to a couple visiting from France.” A flicker of a smile twitched at his lips. “Sounds like the makings of a slumber party.”

  “Change of plans.” I held out my keys. “You can change the tire and then go stay at my house.”

  “It makes a lot more sense for you to go home and for me to stay with my sister.”

  “My cat is at her house. Home is where your cat is.”

  We exchanged keys. “You don’t trust yourself around me,” he said.

  “You tell yourself whatever you have to so you can get through the night.”

  I didn’t wait around to “help” him. I started the engine and pulled out of the space. As I approached the sidewalk that ran around the mall, I spotted a woman in a floor length chinchilla fur coat. She looked toward the far end of the mall. I followed her gaze. Jim Insendo, the white-haired man who’d been talking to Cat at the party, headed toward her. She met him halfway and they hugged. They were about fifty feet away from the SUV. Close enough to see her face light up but out of eavesdropping range. She gestured to Catnip couple of times and they shared a laugh. He handed her a small present. She held it carefully until they parted ways then tossed it in her oversized designer handbag. A car horn sounded behind me. I pulled forward and drove to Cat’s house.

&nbs
p; Her front door was unlocked. I found her in the kitchen with a green cotton apron tied over her pregnant belly. Logan had his head buried in a bowl of cat food and Detective Madden sat in a chair by her dining room table. He wore a black suit and white shirt. Today’s tie was marigold.

  Floral arrangements in baskets were lined up by the back door. “What’s all this?” I asked. I gestured toward the flowers, but it could be argued that the same gesture included Madden.

  “They started arriving after you left. There’s more but the smell turned my stomach so I put them out back.” She pushed the curtain aside and I saw a row of white plants and wreathes decorating her otherwise barren patio. “This one is from Kenner & Winn. It’s the nicest of the bunch so I thought I should try to keep it for the memorial service.” She adjusted a leaf and then looked at me.

  Madden folded his hands and leaned forward on the table. “You’re a well-liked woman, Ms. Lestes. Between the casseroles and the flowers, it’s obvious.”

  She turned on the faucet and ran her fingers under the water. “I know a lot of people through the store.”

  “These are from customers?” I asked.

  “Customers, vendors, neighbors, extended family.” she said. “It was on the afternoon news. I saw it at the doctor’s office.”

  I looked back and forth between her and Madden again. There was no tension in the air, but the detective showed no signs of leaving. The brown mug that Cat had almost broken the night of her fit was on the table, and a used tea bag sat nestled in a spoon to the right of the mug.

  Logan lifted his head from his food bowl and licked his whiskers a couple of times. He turned and looked at Madden, and then lowered his head and scurried out of the room with his tail low.

  “I’m almost finished here and then you can have my undivided attention,” Cat said. “You like lasagna, right, Sam?” One hand was on a rectangular glass dish that was layered with large flat noodles, ricotta cheese, tomato sauce, and something green. The noodles, cheese, and sauce were identifiable at a fifty foot distance. The green thing—a vegetable, I guessed—wasn’t my area of expertise. I was pretty sure a vegetable couldn’t ruin a perfectly good tray of lasagna.

  “I love lasagna.”

  “Good. I added kale. You’re okay with that, right?”

  “Sure. I put kale in my lasagna all the time,” I lied. “How did things go at the doctor?”

  “Everything’s fine. I told her about what happened and she said it’s more important than ever that I meditate and try to establish a calm space.” Cat slid the lasagna into the oven and set the microwave timer. “Detective Madden has been keeping me company while you and Dante were at the store. Where is Dante?”

  “He’s still at the mall. Somebody stuck a knife in my tire and he’s changing it.”

  Madden set down his mug. “Did you file a police report?”

  “I called and they told me to fill one out online.”

  “You didn’t catch the vandals, did you? Get a description or a lead?”

  “No. Why is everybody asking me that? Usually the police want me to stay away from criminals. Now you’re all asking me if I caught one.”

  He chuckled. “It’s taking all of our manpower to respond to the calls we get so the chief determined some crimes were non-emergency. Vandalism is one. Sad to say it happens this time of year. Fill out the report online and someone will follow up with you.”

  “Speaking of the crime wave, how’s the investigation going?” (I didn’t really expect him to answer, but you can’t blame me for trying.)

  “It’s going,” he said.

  “Detective Madden was telling me about the evidence they found at my store,” Cat said.

  “You were?” I was surprised.

  “It’s hard to say what was important and what wasn’t, especially in a store that gets a lot of traffic this close to the holidays,” he said.

  “They found footprints,” Cat said. “Isn’t that right, detective?”

  “Not sure if they’re pertinent, but we did notice footprints that were deeper in the pile of the carpet than the other impressions we found, which indicates that the person might have been running. They was pointed toward the gate.”

  “How far apart were they?” I asked.

  “The distance between the prints was also in line with the running theory.”

  “Anything else? What was the shape? High heel? Loafer? Sneaker? Man or woman?”

  “Round toed boot. Not conclusive one way or the other, but not a very large print so I’m not ruling anybody out just yet.” He took a pull on his coffee. “Ms. Lestes, you don’t happen to own a gun, do you?”

  Both Cat and I were surprised by the seemingly unrelated question. “Of course she doesn’t own a gun,” I said.

  “Actually, I do,” Cat said.

  We both looked at her. “Let me guess. It’s a pearl handled revolver,” I said.

  “No, it’s a Ruger LC9. George bought it for me. He said I should have a way to protect myself when he was out of town.”

  “Where is it now?” Madden asked.

  “In a case under my bed. I admit I don’t like owning the thing, but George said it was necessary.” She looked at me and then at Madden. “I haven’t fired it since the day my brother took me to the firing range to practice.”

  “When was that?” Madden asked.

  “Three years ago.”

  “Why are you asking about a gun? Are you worried for Cat’s safety?” I asked.

  Detective Madden looked at me but his response was aimed at Cat. “Ms. Lestes, I’m going to need to see that gun.”

  Cat gave Madden the gun and he left. I excused myself and showered off the crime scene. When I came out of the bathroom, Cat was in her bed. A meditational podcast played from the phone on the side table. I went downstairs and wondered what the detective knew that we didn’t. By nine thirty, I was asleep with Logan curled up next to me.

  11

  SUNDAY MORNING

  The next morning, I woke, showered again, and dressed in a white cashmere tunic, brown tights, and a brown tweed skirt. Cat was making leek pancakes and some kind of green juice.

  “I can’t believe you sent Dante to your house,” she said. “He could have stayed here. There’s room.”

  “Cat, I’m already sleeping on your sofa. Where was he going to sleep? The garage?”

  “There are two sofas in the living room.”

  “I don’t think that would have been a good idea.”

  “You don’t trust yourself,” she said. (Like brother, like sister?)

  “I trust myself just fine.”

  “Have you told Nick?”

  “About what? I didn’t tell him about Dante and me going to your store. He has a lot on his mind and I didn’t want to stress him out further.”

  “Sam, the man has made it clear that you’re a part of his life.” She put her hands on her hips and the residual of uncooked leek pancake batter flipped off the end of the spatula. “Does that scare you?”

  “‘Scare’ isn’t the right word. I’ve gotten used to my autonomy and for a long time it’s been me making decisions about me. Reporting in to someone else doesn’t come naturally.”

  “Calling your boyfriend to talk to him about what’s going on in your life isn’t ‘reporting in.’ It’s communication.”

  “I know. I’m just not good at it.” I sipped at my glass of green juice (the coffee wasn’t ready and, frankly, I was afraid to ask what it was.)

  “How come? How did you get to be your age and not know the fundamental rules of maintaining a solid relationship? You can’t tell me you’ve never been in love.”

  “I was in love with Tommy, who took me to my high school prom. And Milo, the fraternity brother I dated for two years in college. And Sal from the deli counter across the street from Bentley’s—no, I think I was just in love with his spicy salami.”

  She set the spatula down and looked at me.

  “Not like that. He gave me
free lunch meat.”

  “So?”

  “So what? We didn’t have all of this cell phone and social media stuff when I was in high school. Things were simpler then. You decorated somebody’s locker and they asked you out.”

  “Yes, and when Tommy took you to the prom you had to walk uphill both ways. Come on, Sam, you’re avoiding the subject. Forget high school and college and the lunch meat connection. You like Nick. You’ve liked him for over a decade. Now that you have him are you bored? That’s what Dante thinks.”

  “Dante talks to you about me?”

  “I probably shouldn’t have brought that up, but you know what I’m saying, right?” Cat asked.

  “Don’t you want to talk about the investigation? Madden told us all kinds of stuff last night. That was weird, right? Why was he so forthcoming?”

  “I don’t want to talk about that. If you tell me the store is ready to open, I’ll go in and open it.”

  “The store is ready to open.”

  “Fine. I’ll call my staff and we’ll pretend it’s business as usual.”

  “That’s called denial.”

  “No, it’s called finding a way to function.”

  “Well, not talking about past relationships is my way of functioning.”

  Cat flipped the pancakes. “I’m not trying to pry. I know Nick’s important to you. I’ve seen it ever since I met you. But I also know my brother. He’s going to buzz around you like a fly unless you swat him away. He likes what he can’t have because it’s a challenge. I’ve watched this my whole life. I love him because he’s my brother, but that doesn’t mean I don’t see his flaws. If you want to date them both, then date them both. There’s nothing wrong with that. But you better be honest with Nick.”

  “I don’t want to date them both! How come we’re still talking about me? Your problem is a lot bigger than mine.”

  “I’m not sure I agree with that.” She eased the leek pancakes off the griddle and laid one on each of the plates on the counter. We ate in silence. As soon as I was done, I excused myself and dug the Nick Phone out of my overnight bag. The battery was low so I plugged in the phone and left it on the counter.

  It was about forty degrees outside, cold enough for a scarf and jacket, but still unseasonable warm for December. If we didn’t have snowfall in a week, it wouldn’t feel like Christmas. Cat drove us to her store. The gate was up and customers were milling about shopping.