Die Buying

by Laura Disilverio

  “Yes. Who’s this?”

  “I hear you’ve been looking for me.”

  Robbie Porter! “Ro—”

  “Don’t say my name! I need to talk to you. I know who murdered my dad.”

  I caught my breath. “You need to go to the police.”

  “I can’t. I’ve got a sheet. They won’t believe me. Besides, they’re looking to shut down my entrepreneurial activities.” A weak laugh ghosted over the phone.

  Translation: he thought they’d arrest him for pushing drugs. “I don’t care about your business dealings.” Ooh, bad choice of words. “Just tell me what you know about your father’s murder.”

  “Tonight. Ten o’clock. You know where. Come alone. If I smell a cop, I won’t show.”

  “Wait! I—”

  But he had hung up. I stared at the phone until it emitted an irritated beep to tell me it was off the hook. I replaced it on the cradle.

  Clearly, Grandpa and I had struck a nerve when we showed his photo around this morning. Someone we talked to had passed the word to Robbie Porter. I thought briefly about calling the police. Helland would certainly want to know that Porter’s son had been in touch. But if I called him, he’d take over the meet and maybe scare Robbie away. I didn’t want to call Helland, I admitted to myself, because then I’d lose my chance of finding the killer and presenting the solution to Helland, gift wrapped. Grandpa! I could use his help if I was going to meet up with Robbie Porter tonight. And why did the kid think I knew where to meet him? Somewhere at the mall, probably, but where? I’d figure that out later. For now, I needed to get hold of Grandpa Atherton.

  A feathery sensation on my ankle sent goose pimples up my leg. I jumped and looked down to see Fubar sitting at my feet, twitching his tail. “You scared me, you dumb feline,” I said.

  He looked pleased.

  I couldn’t get hold of Grandpa, so I left a message and went back to Fernglen, wearing straight-legged jeans, a red henley shirt, and low-heeled boots. I was too hyped from finding Weasel’s body and getting Robbie’s call to sit around at home. I went straight to Merlin’s Cave, hoping to talk to Kyra. Luckily for me, if not for Kyra’s bottom line, no customers waited for her attention. She looked like a gypsy princess today in a red skirt embroidered with gold, an off-the-shoulder peasant blouse, and her hair kinked loosely around her shoulders. A dozen thin bangles circled each wrist. Spotting me, she hurried over and threw her arms around me.

  “I just heard,” she said. “Are you okay?” She drew back and studied my face.

  “Mostly,” I said. “It’s not like Weasel and I were bosom buddies.”

  “Still,” she said.

  “Still.”

  Viewing a dead person, especially a person you know who died violently, takes it out of you. We went behind the counter, and I sat on a swiveling desk chair while she perched on the stool in front of the cash register. “I’m making you some tea,” she announced.

  Oh no. Kyra was a health nut, and her tea invariably tasted like the inside of an old tennis shoe smells. She picked up a sachet loaded with twigs and leafy bits, and probably eye of newt or something similar, and popped it into a delicate china cup patterned with yellow roses. She poured bottled water into the automatic tea kettle and plugged it in, looking at me expectantly. I talked quickly, hoping to escape before the water boiled.

  I told her about how I came to find Weasel. “How did you hear about his death?” I asked.

  “Quigley emailed everyone. Just a short note about ‘a member of our mall family has passed on.’ ”

  Water bubbled in the kettle, and she poured it into the cups. Steam rose in an odiferous cloud that reminded me of walking near a lakeshore after there’d been a fish die-off. Kyra took a long, satisfied sip of her tea and raised her brows at me. “I’m letting it steep,” I said, launching into an account of my phone conversation with Robbie Porter.

  “What did the police say?” she asked. When I stayed silent, she leaned toward me. “You did call them, right?”

  I gave a tiny shake of my head.

  “EJ! What are you going to do? Meet up with this drug dealer?” Her strong brows drew together.

  “He said he wouldn’t show if there were police around. But I won’t go alone,” I said, forcing myself to sip the tea. It was bitter, but not as nasty as I’d expected and I found the warmth soothing. I took another cautious swallow. “Isn’t tonight your hot date with Mr. Lola’s Cookies?” I asked to distract her.

  “It’s not really a date-date. Just a ‘welcome to the mall’ drink.” She winked. “Now, who—”

  A customer walked in, interrupting Kyra’s question. She rose with a tinkle of bangles to ask if he needed help, and I was happy with the interruption since I knew she wouldn’t think Grandpa Atherton was an adequate backup for me. The young man with Kyra was going on and on about Area Fifty-One and a book he’d self-published about his journey to the Krill galaxy aboard an alien spaceship, so I waggled my fingers at her and left, headed for Diamanté.

  Thirteen

  Entering the well-lit boutique, I looked around for Finola, but a woman I didn’t know came forward from the dressing room area. Muted voices told me customers were trying on clothes behind the slatted doors. “May I help you find something?” she asked with a professional smile. Younger than Finola by six or eight years, she was about my height but carried an extra twenty pounds, mostly through her bosom and waist. Great legs showed below the above-the-knee hem of a burnt orange skirt topped with a striped, cowl-necked sweater. A tousled bob highlighted with several shades of dark blond framed a face wider at the jawline than the brow. Heavy makeup almost concealed the scars left by long-ago acne along her lower cheeks.

  “I was looking for Finola,” I said.

  “Oh, she left early for an appointment. I don’t expect her back today,” the woman said, her gaze going past me to a pair of women who came in behind me. They beelined for a sales rack, and hangers clacked as they rustled through the dresses.

  “Are you Monica?” I asked before she could latch onto the newcomers.

  “Yes.” A shadow of suspicion darkened her eyes.

  “I’m EJ Ferris, a security officer here at the mall, and I think Finola told me you were supposed to open the morning that Jackson Porter’s body turned up in the store window.”

  “The police already talked to me,” she said, her face closing down.

  “Great,” I said, ignoring the slight shift in her posture that told me she was ready to charge past me and make a sale to the women now holding sequined camisoles against their torsos. “Then you can tell me what you told them. Why weren’t you here at ten o’clock that morning? Did you lock up the night before? Did you notice anyone weird hanging around, or anything out of place?” I bombarded her with questions, hoping she’d answer at least one.

  “Finola locked up Sunday night,” she said. “I didn’t work Sunday at all.” She seemed to think that cleared her of all blame. Maybe it did.

  “And Monday morning?” I smiled, carefully keeping any hint of censure out of my voice.

  “I was sick. Stomach flu, if you must know.”

  “Did you know Jackson Porter?”

  Her gaze flicked away from me. “I’ve only worked here a little more than a week. I don’t know too many of the customers.”

  Which didn’t answer my question. Before I could call her on it, she said, “You’ll have to excuse me,” and shouldered past me to ask the shoppers if she could start a dressing room for them.

  I browsed the racks for a few minutes, watching Monica and getting a feel for the store. Monica ignored me, flitting capably from the dressing rooms to fetch another size for a customer, then ringing up a sale with a chirpy “Have a good day.” She was clearly planning to avoid me, so I forced the issue by scooping up a pair of earrings crusted with blue and green Swarovski crystals that my mom would love and marching to the cash register. “I’ll take these.”

  She took the earrings from me, swath
ed them in layers of yellow tissue paper, and slid them into a glossy bag. She mellowed enough to give me a small smile after glimpsing the price tag. When I handed over my credit card, she said, “You know, there was a strange pair in here, oh, last Thursday or Friday. They didn’t look like the Diamanté type, if you know what I mean.”

  “What did they look like?”

  She wrinkled her longish nose. “Late teens or early twenties, maybe, wearing that camouflaged gear some of the kids like these days. Not at all the Diamanté style. More like army surplus or even Salvation Army. The girl had about seventeen piercings in her ear”—Monica fingered her left ear—“and the boy wore a ‘Save the Shenandoah Salamander’ tee shirt. I mean, what the heck is a Shenandoah salamander?”

  “An endangered amphibian?” I guessed, taking the small bag from her. Her description sounded remarkably like the pair who had visited the Herpes Hut, and I wondered, excitement pricking along my spine, if there could possibly be a connection between the reptile “liberation” and Porter’s death. Thanking Monica, I left the store, letting my brain cycle through possible links. Could the young man be Robbie Porter? I wished I still had his mug shot on me so I could show it to Monica. Or, if the two were “Save All the Critters to Keep the Environment Diverse” eco-warriors, maybe they had a grudge against Porter because of his development activities. That felt more like it to me. Developers routinely bulldozed animal habitats and drained wetlands, according to popular report. I’d bet one or more of Porter’s projects threatened some creepy crawly or slimy slitherer. Not politically correct terms, I know, but I prefer my animal buddies to have no fewer than two and no more than four legs. And fur or feathers as an exterior covering beat scales or wet skin every time.

  I wondered how I could get a list of all of Porter’s developments and find out which of them, if any, had sparked demonstrations or protests from animal rights groups. If my brother Clint was around, he could run the information down in no time. Digging up data that corporations or heads of state wanted to keep buried was his bread and butter. I’d send him an email when I got home; with luck, he’d be stateside.

  Three thirty and time to meet Joel at the pool came all too quickly. Donning my one-piece suit, I showered, tied my towel around my waist, and padded barefoot to the lap pool, my gut twisting. Relieved to see that Joel wasn’t out yet, I slipped into the water, shuddering at the sudden cold, and trod water to warm up. Only one other person was in the water, swimming laps in the far lane. A bored teenage lifeguard sat in the tower, swinging the whistle that hung from a lanyard around her neck. Joel emerged from the men’s room on the opposite side of the pool a few moments later, wearing lemon-colored trunks and a tee shirt. He carried a rolled-up towel and wore flip-flops.

  “Hi,” he said awkwardly, looking like he thought the whole idea was a mistake. He shuffled out of his flip-flops and laid his towel on top of them, gazing at the water with much the look of a kid eyeing a heaping plate of brussels sprouts.

  “Let’s get started,” I said, motioning him into the water. He started to lower himself into the water, but his hand slipped on the wet tile, sending him into the pool with a splash. His yellow tee shirt ballooned around him, and he swatted at it, trying to flatten the air out of it. Watching him burp air from under the shirt, I realized with a jolt that he was wearing it as camouflage for his body, much as I had contemplated wearing a wetsuit to hide my leg. I felt suddenly more comfortable with him and stripped off the goggles that sat atop my head. “You’ll need these,” I said.

  “I’ll get a pair tomorrow,” he promised, adjusting the band.

  We set off at a slow crawl; Joel barely managed a length and a half before stopping to gasp for air. “Swimming’s hard,” he huffed.

  “That’s why it’s good for us,” I agreed, urging him to complete the lap. “It’ll be easier tomorrow.”

  “Tomorrow! I was thinking maybe once a week—” He swallowed a mouthful of water and coughed.

  “Tomorrow,” I said firmly.

  We swam for only twenty minutes. Joel’s arms were trembling as he hauled himself out of the pool. I eased myself out of the water by pressing my arms straight against the deck and half turning in the air to land on my butt. I had completely forgotten about my knee until Joel’s gaze strayed that way.

  “Looks like it hurts,” he said. There was no hint of revulsion in his voice, merely interest and concern.

  “Not so much anymore,” I said, drawing my towel over and snugging it securely around my hips. And that was that. Joel headed toward the men’s locker room with a wave and a weary, “Thanks, EJ.”

  I took two steps toward the women’s locker room and then turned around, calling after Joel, “What’s her name?”

  A smile split his face and he stood straighter. “Sunny.”

  By the time the clock rolled around to nine p.m., I still hadn’t heard from Grandpa, which worried me slightly. Chances were he was tailing someone or undercover somewhere and had his phone turned off, but it wasn’t like him to be out of touch for so long. I didn’t have time to do it now, but I decided I’d swing by his place on my way home from the mall. I had hoped to hook up with Grandpa before meeting Robbie Porter, to get him to rig me a wire or something so there’d be a record of my conversation with the young drug dealer, but I wasn’t worried about winging it alone. Nothing in Robbie’s background pointed to violence. He seemed to be a low-level druggie who sold a bit on the side to support his habit. I’d decided he was most likely to be in the garage near where Theresa Eshelman had seen him. If I didn’t find him there, I’d wander around until I spotted him. It’d be easier to find him by using the security cameras, but I didn’t want to alert Woskowicz to what I was doing by going into the security office.

  A two-car accident and a detour made me late, and it was dead on ten o’clock when I pulled into the Fernglen parking lot. Before I had parked, a car cruised toward me, its brights blinding me. It pulled up alongside my Miata, and I recognized the security office’s green and white car. Of all the bad luck. Captain Woskowicz rolled down his window as I got out. Poking his head forward, he opened his door but stayed in the car with the engine running. “The mall’s closed,” he said gruffly. “Oh, it’s you, Ferris. What the hell are you doing here?”

  I swung my door shut and said as casually as I could, “I think I left my gym bag upstairs.”

  “And you need it at ten o’clock at night?”

  “I . . . uh, need it for my workout first thing in the morning. My iPod’s in there.”

  “I don’t know why you bother working out with that bum knee of yours anyway,” he grumbled, pulling his head back into the car. “Hey, and while you’re up there, get my coffee cup, would you? I left it by the coffeepot.”

  “No problem,” I said, slowly unclenching my fists.

  Damn. Now I would be late meeting Robbie because I was going to have to go all the way up to the security office and back. I felt Woskowicz watching me as I walked to the entrance, using my key to let myself in. I walked as fast as I could, half jogging although it made my knee hurt, through the deserted halls to the security office, unlocked it, and did a scan for Woskowicz’s stainless steel mug. It was where he said it would be. I scooped it up and glanced at the camera screens. The view I needed wasn’t showing. Rather than take the time to pull up that camera, I relocked the door and retraced my steps, conscious of my watch ticking past ten after ten.

  I hurried out the door and over to where Woskowicz waited in the car. “Here.” I thrust the warm cup at him.

  “No gym bag?” He eyed my empty hands.

  “I must’ve left it at the gym,” I said with a helpless shrug. “Stupid of me.”

  “You got that right.” He guzzled his coffee and wiped the back of his hand across his lips. “Why don’t you come in at six tomorrow instead of seven? I’m beat.”

  “Sure thing,” I agreed, anxious to be rid of him.

  He took another sip of coffee, elbow casually propped
on the door, seemingly in no hurry to resume his patrol.

  “Well, I’d better be getting home if I’m coming in early,” I said. I started the engine and pulled away slowly, watching in the rearview mirror until Woskowicz finally put the car in gear, wove around a light post, and headed toward the theater parking area where a few cars testified to a movie still showing. Playing it safe, I drove across the lot until I was sure he was out of sight, and then I flipped a U-turn and sped back, turning into the garage this time so Woskowicz wouldn’t spot my car if he circled the mall again. Hopefully, he wouldn’t bother to cruise through the garage.

  Locking my car, I started up the ramp to the next level where I expected to find Robbie Porter. My knee ached from jogging to the security office, and I leaned over to massage it as I walked. I came to the top of the ramp and turned the corner, scanning for Robbie Porter. No cars blocked my view of the dark garage. A thin wind whistled through, and I dug my hands into my pocket. I was ready for spring. Suddenly, running footsteps from my left startled me. I hurried forward and caught a glimpse of a dark figure running toward the northwest corner where the elevators and stairs were. Foreboding gripped me. Pushing myself, I sprinted to where the figure had started from. There, I found a huddled figure slumped against the wall.

  “Robbie!” I shouted. No movement. I dropped to my knees beside Robbie Porter, taking in a waxy white face framed by a gray hoodie. Unseeing eyes stared at me, and a thin line of drool crawled from his slack mouth. Robbie’s sweatshirt sleeve was pushed up, and rubber tubing encircled his left arm just below the bicep. A needle, plunger pushed all the way down on the syringe, was buried in the vein. I put my fingers to his throat and thought I felt a faint pulse. “Hang on, Robbie,” I commanded, frantically pulling my cell phone from my pocket and dialing 911. When I’d given the information to the operator, I shrugged out of my jacket and tucked it around Robbie’s thin form.

  The ding of the arriving elevator pulled my head up, and I realized the running person couldn’t use the stairs because they were locked. He or she had had to wait for the elevator. I leaped up and took off toward the elevator, convinced whoever waited there knew something about what had happened to Robbie. Maybe he was a fellow druggie and they’d shot up together. Or maybe his—or her—role was more sinister. I heard the doors shush closed before I was in view of the elevator, and I fumbled for my keys as I ran so I could unlock the stair door. I took the stairs two at a time, using the banister to take the weight off my wrecked knee. Skin peeled off the palm of my hand as I slid it along the metal railing. On the second step from the bottom, my knee collapsed and I fell forward, banging into the door and bruising my shoulder. Damn. I fumbled for the release bar and leaned against it, spilling out into the lower level in time to see the runner dash out the garage entrance. I tried to stand, but my knee gave way again and I crumpled to the ground. An engine started and tires squealed as whoever it was escaped.