Since I knew I’d be out late at the Staffords’ party last night, I scheduled myself for the late shift today at Holt’s. For once, I was glad to be in the store—but only because this was the last time I’d have to wear this god-awful elf costume, and I was anxious to get the whole Summer Santa Sale thing over with.
Usually, the crowd slowed down as the day wore on, but not today. Customers pillaged and plundered the shelves and racks, desperate, it seemed, to max out their credit cards and overdraw their bank accounts while comforting themselves with the but-it’s-a-great-price excuse, a personal favorite of mine.
The Summer Santa Sale was in its final death throes but none of the store management seemed ready to give up on it—or its contribution to their annual bonuses. The department managers had taken to the sales floor themselves, hitting up customers for donations to the children’s charity.
Jeanette led the effort—which I didn’t think really helped the cause. In keeping with her Christmas-themed attire, today she had on a brown pantsuit with, for no apparent reason, a huge red button at her throat.
She looked kind of like the Rudolph float in the Macy’s parade.
“Hi, Haley,” Nikki said, and walked up with her usual perky smile in place. “You look upset. Are you okay?”
Considering that Rita—I hate her—had assigned me to the Infants Department—I hate that department—and I had two more grueling hours to go wearing an elf costume, and almost nobody in the store was speaking to me, plus my boyfriend had ditched me last night and I’d been visited by a possible psycho-stalker, and I still hadn’t figured out who had killed McKenna, I thought I was in pretty good shape.
Apparently, I wasn’t pulling it off as well as I’d thought.
“Just a lot of stuff going on, that’s all,” I said.
Nikki nodded as if she knew exactly what I meant, though I sincerely doubted it.
“At least Alyssa came in today,” she said, giving me a doesn’t-that-make-it-all-better smile. “She’s really good at getting donations. Maybe the store will finish in next-to-last-place instead of the very bottom.”
Yes, that was something to look forward to, all right.
“It was fun working here,” Nikki said.
She sounded as if she meant it and, honestly, Nikki had been really sweet. I liked her and I’d miss her.
“You’ll probably be a big star next year,” I said. “But just in case you’re not, maybe you can come back and work the sale again.”
“That would be so cool,” Nikki said. She glanced off to the right and her eyes got big. “I see a customer.”
She dashed away.
My day needed a boost. I desperately needed to talk to somebody who would take my mind off my problems—and a Snickers bar wouldn’t hurt, either.
Marcie, my best BFF on the entire planet, sprang into my mind, along with the vending machine in the break room. With the blatant disregard for Holt’s no-phones-on-the-sales-floor policy that I was known for, I pulled out my cell and headed for the rear of the store.
Bella stepped into the aisle from the Boys Department.
“It’s b.s.,” she said. “You ask me, it’s b.s.”
Even though Bella hadn’t been tasked with wearing an elf costume, she’d kept up her commitment to holiday-hair right to the bitter end. Today she’d fashioned what looked like a candy cane atop her head.
Bella looked mega annoyed about something, and I really had enough problems of my own. But since she was one of the two people who’d spoken to me so far today, I stopped.
“What’s up?” I asked, and tucked my cell phone into my pocket.
“That big sign in the break room,” she said.
There was a sign in the break room?
“About the store meeting tonight,” she said.
There was a meeting?
“Can you believe it?” Bella said. “All the employees have to be there. Jeanette is even calling employees who aren’t working, telling them to come in.”
Oh, crap. This couldn’t be good.
“We’re probably going to have to sit there for an hour, getting yelled at because we did so bad in the contest,” Bella said.
“That’s b.s., all right,” I said.
“Damn right it is,” she grumbled, and walked away.
Well, that didn’t exactly brighten my day. Now I absolutely had to talk to Marcie. I pulled out my cell phone again and—come on, really?—my day actually got worse. Trent had texted me.
For a few seconds, I ignored it. Then I thought that maybe this could be something good. Maybe he’d texted me his confession.
I hit the view button on my cell phone and his message popped up. Only it wasn’t a message. It was a picture of McKenna.
He’d tried to show it to me last night but I’d plowed ahead with questions, hoping to uncover some evidence in McKenna’s death. I guess Trent was just bound and determined I was going see the picture that had been taken at her big meeting with the Hollywood producer.
I ducked behind the greeting cards display rack and accessed the picture.
The photo had been taken outside on a restaurant patio. From the buildings in the background, I guessed it was in downtown L.A. somewhere. Bright sunshine filtered through vine-covered lattice work. The tables were covered with yellow linens, and set with floral china.
My heart did a little dip, seeing McKenna in the center of the shot, knowing she was dead now. Her arm was raised as she held up what I guessed was her phone to snap the picture of herself, on what had surely been the greatest day of her life.
She wore an emerald green tank top, accessorized with big, hoop earrings and a chunky necklace. A tote was slung over her shoulder, a yellow Fossil that I recognized from last winter.
The heart of the photo was McKenna’s smile. It was brilliant.
Beside her stood a man I didn’t recognize, but I figured he was the producer she’d met with. Fifty was in his rearview mirror, yet it was obvious he was fighting it. Fake tan, jaw line stretched a little too tight, not a gray hair in sight.
Behind McKenna, a waiter in a white shirt had gotten caught by the camera, and off to the side the arm of a woman carrying a Louis Vuitton satchel had made it into the shot.
Hang on a second.
I enlarged the photo and centered it on the satchel. The bag was a knock-off. I’d seen hundreds of counterfeits since Marcie and I had started our purse party business, but something about this one seemed different.
Handbags—dozens of them—flashed through my brain quicker than Santa Claus slid down a chimney. I’d seen this satchel some place before, very recently. It didn’t have simply the exclusive LVT pattern the company was known for. It was mixed with their checkerboard design that—
Oh my God.
Alyssa had a satchel just like this.
Was the bag in the photo her bag? If it was, how could that be?
Alyssa had won a contest and the opportunity to meet with a producer. Was the man in the picture standing next to McKenna that same producer? And if he was, why was Alyssa there at McKenna’s meeting?
Was it just a crazy coincidence?
I wasn’t big on coincidences.
I accessed my phone book and punched Detective Shuman’s name. He answered on the third ring.
“Where are you?” I might have said that kind of loud.
“Well, hello to you, too,” he said and uttered a little laugh.
“Get here,” I told him. “Now.”
“What’s wrong?” Shuman must have picked up on the oh-so subtle something-huge-happened urgency in my voice because he launched into cop-mode immediately.
“I’m at the store,” I said. “I think I know who murdered McKenna Crane.”
***
Shuman insisted that I wait until he got here but, of course, no way was I doing that. The store would close in about an hour and that meant Alyssa would leave, and I couldn’t let that happen. Plus, there was a chance that my suspicion was colder than Chr
istmas day at the North Pole, and if I was wrong I wanted to know before Shuman showed up.
I circulated through the store searching for Alyssa and finally spotted her in the Women’s Department. She looked up as I approached. Maybe she saw something in my expression. Maybe she figured her luck had run out. I don’t know, but she left the department heading for the rear of the store. She went into the elves’ dressing room. I followed her inside.
No one else was there. The place was cluttered with street clothes and shoes, makeup and hair care products. Alyssa retreated to the farthest corner of the room.
“I’m leaving early,” she said, and ripped off her Santa hat.
“I don’t get it,” I said, because really, I didn’t. “How did you end up at McKenna’s meeting?”
Alyssa flattened herself against the wall, as if my words had blasted her onto it.
“I saw the photo McKenna took that day. You were there, too. How did you know she was meeting that producer?” I asked.
Alyssa pressed her lips together as if she were trying to hold back. Then, I guess, she’d held back too long already. Her eyes got wild, and she clinched her hands into fists at her sides.
“It wasn’t her meeting! It was mine! I won that contest! I won that meeting! And McKenna crashed it!”
“She just showed up?” I asked.
“Yes! A bunch of us were all together, tweeting, trying to win, and I won!” Alyssa screamed. “Then when I got there, McKenna appeared out of nowhere. She took over. She threw herself at the producer—and she stole my chance at a huge role!”
“That was really crappy,” I said.
“I’ve been at this forever. I finally—finally—got a break and she ruined it!”
Honestly, I couldn’t blame Alyssa for being mad. McKenna had definitely back-stabbed her big-time.
“So that’s why you killed her?” I asked.
“No.” Alyssa shook her head. She drew in a couple of big breaths and calmed down a little. “I let it go. I was furious, but I let it go. I mean, I might not have gotten the role anyway, right? So I put it aside and moved on.”
I believed that she’d moved on, like she said. But I figured that wasn’t the end of it.
“But McKenna wouldn’t let it go?” I asked.
Alyssa’s cheeks turned red and her breathing became labored.
“She just wouldn’t shut up about it,” she said. “She kept shooting off her mouth about her chance meeting with a producer—she sure wasn’t going to tell the truth and make herself look bad.”
“I heard all the talk about how McKenna planned to get a personal assistant, a condo at the beach,” I said which, under the circumstances, was super crappy of her. “I guess she was still talking it up that morning when you all came to work here?”
“Oh, you bet she was,” Alyssa said.
“So you asked her to keep quiet?”
“I couldn’t take it any more,” she said, and tears sprang to her eyes. “When we were leaving the dressing room, I pulled her into the stockroom, and I told her that she could blab her big mouth all she wanted, but I knew the truth about what she’d done, and to keep quiet around me.”
“That sounds reasonable,” I said.
Where was Detective Shuman?
“She went crazy.” Alyssa flung out her arms.
Why wasn’t he here yet?
“She tried to leave the stockroom—like she was too good to talk to me,” Alyssa said. “She pushed me.”
I didn’t need night vision goggles to see where this was going.
“So you pushed her back,” I said.
“I would never have pushed her, if she hadn’t pushed me first,” Alyssa said. She was crying harder now. “And she stumbled against that big shelving unit, and knocked all the decorations into the floor, then she fell down, too.”
McKenna hadn’t died from a fall. She’s been hit on the head. I knew something more than happened.
“It scared me,” Alyssa said, swiping at her tears. “I thought she’d gotten hurt. I tried to help her up but she slapped me. She was so mad—like she couldn’t believe something like that could actually happen to her. Like she was invincible now, since she’d gotten that big role.”
Alyssa pressed her palm to her forehead and shook her head, as if she couldn’t bear to remember what had happened.
“McKenna said I’d assaulted her,” Alyssa said. “She said she was going to call the police and I’d be arrested. She said I’d be thrown in jail. She was going to get all kinds of publicity, and everybody in Hollywood would know what I’d done to her, and I’d never—ever—find work as an actress.”
At that point, I might have hit McKenna, too.
“I couldn’t let her do that.” Alyssa shook her head frantically. “I don’t know what happened. She just wouldn’t shut up. And all I could think was that my career was over. I’d never, never, never be an actress.”
“So you hit her on the head with the nutcracker,” I said.
“It happened to fast.” Alyssa gasped for air. “I don’t know what I was thinking. She just wouldn’t shut up. So I picked up that thing and I hit her with it.”
We both went silent, Alyssa’s panting the only sound in the room. Her eyes were focused on nothing but were filled with the horror of what she’d done that day.
After a couple of minutes, she looked up at me and said, “I never meant to hurt her. I certainly didn’t mean to kill her.”
“I understand,” I said, because really, I did.
She hurried over to me. “You’re not going to tell anyone, are you? You—you can’t tell anyone. Please, you can’t.”
Maybe I wouldn’t tell anybody.
For a few seconds I considered it. The whole thing was an unfortunate situation that got out of hand. Alyssa hadn’t meant to hurt McKenna, and McKenna had definitely provoked her.
But, really, it wasn’t my call to make.
Alyssa must have seen my decision flash across my face because she cut around me and ran out the door. I took off after her.
First of all, it’s really hard to run in pointed-toed elf shoes. But the good part was that when customers saw two elves running all-out through the aisles, they got out of the way.
Alyssa sprinted past the checkout lines and blasted through the front doors. I followed.
Where was Shuman? Where was he when I called? Had he had time to get here?
I didn’t see Shuman, but a black-and-white patrol car sat at the curb. Two officers were standing at the rear bumper waiting, I guessed, for him to show up.
“Hey!” I screamed.
The officers turned and saw me.
“Stop her!” I yelled, and pointed toward Alyssa who was heading into the parking lot.
One of them started after her. Wow, that guy ran really fast—which was way hot, of course. He caught her. She tried to wrestle away, then gave up and started crying.
I jogged over just as Detectives Shuman and Madison pulled up.
Chapter 13
Detective Madison looked disappointed, as usual, that I hadn’t committed murder. He’d actually asked Alyssa—twice—if she’d really done it, even after she’d confessed to the two patrolmen and both him and Detective Shuman.
Everybody was loaded up into their cars, ready to pull away from the store, but Shuman held back.
“Sorry I sent you on that wild goose chase about Trent Daniels,” I said.
“Your instincts were right-on,” he said. “He had a juvenile record, sealed of course, but I talked to one of the guys who’d worked the case. Seems Daniels couldn’t stop looking in his neighbors’ windows.”
Jeez, was I ever glad I’d never see that weirdo again.
“Good work,” Shuman said, then gave me the once-over in my elf costume. “This puts you on Santa’s ‘nice’ list, for sure.”
“And what about you?” I asked. “Which list are you on?”
Shuman grinned. “I could work my way onto the ‘naughty’ list very easily
.”
A few ‘naughty’ thoughts sprang into my head—which was bad of me, I know—and from the look in Shuman’s eyes, ‘nice’ wasn’t on his mind, either.
Then we both snapped out of it.
“Someone will notify you if you’re needed for follow up,” Shuman said, and backed away.
“Whatever,” I said, and headed back to the store.
Rita—I hate her—waited at the entrance, holding the door open and glaring at me.
“Could you move it a little faster, princess?” she said.
I slowed my pace considerably, then sauntered inside. She shut the door and locked it.
“You’re supposed to be in the stockroom,” Rita said. “Hurry up and get back there.”
Since I wasn’t in any great rush to get bitched-out by store management for our appalling performance in the children’s charity contest—and I sure as heck wasn’t going to wear this elf costume another second—I headed for the dressing room.
A few I’m-going-to-get-the-sale-price-no-matter-how-many-employees-I-have-to-inconvenience customers were in line. Most of the cashiers were closing their registers. The store lights had been turned down, but the Christmas trees were still lit.
I was the last elf in the dressing room. I changed clothes, re-applied my makeup, and was forced to compensate for a severe case of hat-hair by pulling it up into a ponytail.
I walked out into the hallway and ran into Jeanette, and—oh my God—Ty was with her. What was he doing here?
Then I knew. He’d blown off his San Francisco trip to be here with me.
My heart did its wow-this-is-too-good-to-be-true flutter.
I wanted to throw myself into Ty’s arms and give him a big kiss, but held back since Jeanette was standing there. They exchanged a few more words, then she disappeared through the double doors into the stockroom.
Ty looked fabulous in a dark suit, snow white shirt, and ruby red necktie. He slid his arm around me and gave me a quick kiss.
“I can’t believe you’re here,” I said.
“Duty calls,” Ty said, opening the stockroom door for me.
Duty? That’s what I was now? A duty?
I walked ahead of him through the stockroom to the loading dock—and stopped still in my tracks.
Slay Bells and Satchels (Haley Randolph Mystery Series) Page 11
