Swag Bags and Swindlers

by Dorothy Howell

  Rosalind spotted me. The three women stopped talking and turned, and I realized they were the gals who’d volunteered to help me with the swag bags for the gala.

  I didn’t know how I failed to recognize them—even from behind—since they were all wearing neon bike shorts, visors, and tons of jewelry.

  “Haley, thank God you’re here,” Shana declared.

  “We got problems, honey,” Delores told me. “Let me tell you, we’ve got major problems here.”

  I hoped those problems didn’t include canceling the gala or the swag bags I still needed.

  Not to sound selfish, of course.

  “Can I help you with something?” Rosalind asked me.

  She was probably over the hump into sixty, judging from her heavy jowls and eyelids, but her hair showed no gray and she had on a sharp-looking business suit that she’d accessorized well. She had a competent, capable, I-can-handle-anything air about her, even though she looked slightly annoyed—whether it was with me or the gals, I didn’t know.

  I introduced myself as I held up my L.A. Affairs portfolio, and said, “I called you earlier.”

  She gave me an I’m-in-the-middle-of-something-but-I-know-I-have-to-do-this nod, and said, “I’ll be with you shortly.”

  That should have been my cue to back out of the office, but no way was I moving until I found out if the gala—thus my job performance review and my opportunity to quit my job at Holt’s—was in jeopardy.

  Luckily, I didn’t have to ask what was going on.

  “Again,” Delores said. “Again, it’s happened. This time to Shana.”

  “It’s disgraceful,” Trudy said. “A place like this, and we have to deal with this sort of thing.”

  “And nothing is being done about it,” Delores said.

  Okay, I was completely lost.

  Trudy must have realized this, because she said, “Shana’s earrings were stolen. Right out of her room.”

  “I was going to wear them to the gala,” Shana said. “And now I don’t know what I’m going to do.”

  “Personal possessions are disappearing right and left. Right and left,” Delores said. She picked up a sheet of paper from Rosalind’s desk and waved it. “And what’s being done? I’ll tell you what’s being done. We’re filling out forms. That’s it. Filling out forms.”

  “Forms,” Trudy muttered. “Are words on a paper going to get Shana’s earrings back? I ask you. Are they? No, of course not.”

  “We know who took them,” Shana said. “It’s common knowledge. We know who took everything.”

  Wow, I was really glad I’d stayed.

  “Who?” I asked.

  “Nothing has been proved,” Rosalind insisted. “I won’t sully the reputation of one of our employees by accusing—”

  “It was Derrick,” Shana said.

  Rosalind heaved a frustrated sigh.

  “He was always coming in our rooms, uninvited,” Shana said. “Completely uninvited.”

  “Pretending he was interested in us, claiming he wanted to help,” Trudy said. “Help us. Can you imagine?”

  “And all the while stealing our things,” Shana said.

  “This should put an end to that rumor once and for all,” Rosalind declared. “Derrick Ellery certainly could not have taken your earrings since he’s . . . no longer with us.”

  “Of course he could have,” Shana said.

  “Listen, honey,” Delores said. “Shana wasn’t wearing those diamond and ruby earrings every day. They’re not the kind of thing you prance around in like they were some cheap knockoffs. They could have been taken weeks ago and she wouldn’t have known.”

  “Derrick could have taken them,” Trudy said.

  “And I’m sure he did,” Shana said.

  “The homicide detectives must have searched Derrick’s home,” I said. “If they found your earrings they’d have to return them.”

  Trudy brightened. “I hadn’t thought of that.”

  “Haley, honey, you’re a genius, an absolute genius,” Delores said. “Isn’t she a genius?”

  “A genius,” Shana said.

  “If you fill out the form, I’m sure Rosalind will give it to the police,” I said.

  “Along with all the other forms the other residents have filled out, I hope,” Delores said, giving Rosalind semi-major stink-eye.

  “Yes, of course,” Rosalind said.

  “Okay, then. Let’s go, girls,” Delores said.

  The three of them gave me a little finger wave and left the office.

  Shana leaned back inside and said, “And don’t you worry about those swag bags, Haley. We’re working on them. We’ve got a list—a big list, and we’re narrowing it down. They’re going to be fabulous. You’ll see. Fabulous. So don’t worry. We’re handling everything.”

  “Thanks,” I said.

  Shana disappeared out the door.

  Rosalind drew in one of those thank-God-that’s-over breaths and dropped into her desk chair. I got the idea she wasn’t happy about taking on the extra duty of notifying the police about the thefts, but very glad the gals were mollified and out the door.

  “Please, sit down,” she said, and gestured to the visitor’s chair in front of her desk.

  Her office was neat and organized, though stacked high with all sorts of folders, binders, and printouts. I wondered if Mr. Stewart had taken all the crap off his desk and dumped it here for Rosalind to take care of.

  That’s what I would have done.

  “I appreciate your taking the time to see me,” I said as I sat down. “I know you’re short staffed and very busy since you’ve taken over Derrick’s position as assistant director.”

  “I’m playing catch-up on a great number of things,” Rosalind said. “My work ethic is decidedly different than his was.”

  She, along with most everyone else I’d talked to here at Hollywood Haven, made no secret of her dislike for Derrick. I wondered if Rosalind had more reason than the others, like maybe she’d been passed over for the assistant director job that Mr. Stewart had given to Derrick. If so, she was bound to resent it.

  Enough to murder him?

  Maybe.

  I was mentally composing a clever way to ease into that topic, but Rosalind put a stop to it.

  “What, exactly, can I do for you?” she asked, in a no-nonsense junior-high-teacher voice.

  I hate that voice.

  I’d hated junior high, too.

  “The menu for the gala. I need the final okay for the caterer.” I opened the portfolio and handed her the list of appetizers, beverages, meal, and dessert selections Derrick and I had agreed on. “If you’re happy with everything, I need your signature at the bottom.”

  Usually, at this point I’d go over any items I felt might need a second look, but Rosalind didn’t seem interested. She gave the list a quick once-over, then signed and passed it back.

  “Everything is being handled and is on schedule,” I told her.

  Usually when I said that to a client I got a big smile, or at least an I’m-relieved sigh. But Rosalind did neither.

  “I’ll need your final approval on a few things,” I said. “I’ll let you know as they come up.”

  “That will be fine,” Rosalind said. “Thank you.”

  I left her office, sure she was glad I was gone, and also sure I was the easiest situation she’d dealt with today.

  As I headed down the hallway I spotted Alden the Great and Emily ambling across the lobby. From the residents’ wing piano music drifted out of the dayroom and I recognized Frank Sinatra’s “Fly Me to the Moon”—though it was definitely not Ol’ Blue Eyes voicing the lyrics.

  “Hi, Haley,” Emily called.

  She stopped. Alden tottered ahead, his pace a little slower than usual, I noticed.

  “You’re here again?” Emily asked, and walked over.

  “Just finalizing a few details for the gala,” I said. “How’s your dad?”

  “This isn’t one of his best days
,” she said with a sad smile. “So you’ll be coming back again?”

  “Several more times,” I said.

  “Great. So—” Emily glanced at her dad. He was headed down the hallway to the business offices.

  “Oh, dear.”

  She waved as she hurried to catch up with him. I saw her take his arm gently, speak softly to him, then steer him back the other way.

  I noticed then that Sylvia was seated on one of the sofas in the lobby and had parked Ida and her wheelchair next to her. As usual, Sylvia was frowning and yammering on about something.

  Too bad Ida’s love affair with Arthur Zamora hadn’t worked out. If they’d married she might have ended up with a daughter as kind and caring as Alden the Great was blessed with. He’d won the daughter lottery for sure.

  My brain did a flash-forward to one day in the future when I might have to come and visit my mom or dad at a place like this. Yikes! Definitely not something I wanted to contemplate now—or ever, really.

  I spotted Karen at the front desk, finally. Jeez, if things didn’t work out for me at L.A. Affairs, maybe I could get hired here. Karen was almost never at her post—my kind of job.

  But she didn’t look the least bit happy when I walked up. She was wringing her hands and frowning, and looked completely stressed out. I was sure she was desperate for a cigarette break.

  I didn’t bother with niceties.

  “What’s wrong?” I asked.

  When Karen looked up at me, I saw tight lines around her mouth and dark circles under her eyes.

  “I might be in trouble with the police,” she said.

  My maybe-she-did-it senses jumped completely off the scale.

  I’d been told that Derrick had wanted to fire Karen, and I wondered if she’d found out and had ended the situation by murdering him. Had Detectives Walker and Teague wondered the same thing?

  “What happened?” I asked, and achieved, I think, the perfect mix of outrage and concern crucial to push this sort of conversation forward.

  “The police, they came back and started asking me questions again,” Karen said. “They think I saw something the day Derrick was murdered.”

  “Like what?” I asked.

  Karen nodded toward the hallway that led to the business offices. “I can see Derrick’s office from here.”

  I turned and saw that, sure enough, Derrick’s office door was clearly visible from Karen’s position at the front desk.

  “They said the security cameras don’t cover the hallway or any of the interior, some sort of privacy issue,” Karen said. “So they think I must have seen the murderer go into Derrick’s office.”

  Oh my God. This was some good stuff.

  “What did you tell them?” I asked.

  “People are always coming and going—all the time. Staff, residents, visitors,” Karen said.

  “And?”

  “It’s all routine. So that’s what I told them,” Karen said. “I didn’t see anything that day that stuck out in my mind.”

  “But?”

  “Well, after I got home, I was thinking about it,” Karen said.

  “Yes?”

  “Well, I realized that I’d seen something kind of unusual.”

  “What was it?”

  “I remember because it happened just a few minutes before you arrived,” Karen said.

  Jeez, if this conversation got any slower I was going to have to get out and push.

  “Yeah, okay, so what was it?” I asked.

  Karen gulped. “Well, just a few minutes before you got here and went into Derrick’s office, I saw Mr. Stewart coming out.”

  “Was that unusual?” I asked.

  “Mr. Stewart never went to Derrick’s office. Derrick always went to his,” Karen said. “I don’t know why I didn’t remember it before.”

  Oh my God. Had that old gray-haired guy shot and killed Derrick?

  The thought flashed in my head that Mr. Stewart had been the one who hired Derrick before his background check was completed, only to learn later that he wasn’t qualified for the position. Had something happened between the two of them that caused Mr. Stewart to think he could be in major trouble if that fact became known? Had he murdered Derrick to try and cover things up?

  “My God, I actually saw who killed Derrick! And I didn’t tell the police!” Karen wailed. “Am I going to get in trouble for, you know, withholding information? Are they going to arrest me? I can’t go to jail—I can’t!”

  Karen was on the verge of an all-out snit-fit, right here in the lobby. I glanced around. People were staring. I had to calm her down.

  I’m not good at calming anyone down.

  Luckily, I saw an easy fix to this situation.

  “Here’s what you should do,” I told her. “Make a list of everyone you saw near Derrick’s office that day and—”

  “Including your name?”

  Oh, crap.

  “Technically I wasn’t there until later,” I pointed out. “Make the list, then call the detectives and explain that you thought about it further, so you wrote down the names of everyone you could remember being in the hallway outside Derrick’s office the day he was killed.”

  Karen took a few seconds to mull this over, then nodded slowly. “That way I’ll look as if I’m helping.”

  “Exactly,” I said. “Then let the police take it from there.”

  “Great. This is perfect. I’ll work on the list today and call the detectives—no, I’ll wait until Monday to call them so I’ll have plenty of time to think about it over the weekend,” Karen said, and gave me a bright smile. “Monday. Yes, I’ll call them on Monday. Thank you, Haley. Thank you so much.”

  I headed toward the front door. Emily and Alden the Great were still puttering across the lobby. Mr. Stewart nodded to them as he walked past. Sylvia wasn’t talking, for a change, a welcome relief to everyone within earshot. Delores and Trudy sat huddled close to Shana as she filled out the form Rosalind had given her. Vida and Rosalind were a few yards ahead of me, heading for lunch, I supposed. The gals gave them stink-eye as they went past.

  Outside, I made my way across the parking lot to my car, still thinking about what Karen had said—or what she hadn’t said.

  She hadn’t mentioned seeing any former employees whom Derrick had fired going into his office the day of his murder. Karen would have noticed that right away, I figured, so I could pretty much mark any of them off my mental suspect list.

  Still, Karen’s sudden revelation that she’d seen Mr. Stewart go into Derrick’s office seemed odd to me.

  Was it true?

  Or was she ratting out someone like most everyone else I’d spoken with at Hollywood Haven?

  CHAPTER 15

  I rolled out of bed Saturday morning, ran through the shower, dried my hair while I pulled on my clothes, put on my makeup as I drove, and whipped into the Holt’s parking lot with a full ninety seconds to spare before my shift started. The lot was crowded, which was strange for so early in the day, and a large group of people was gathered by the front entrance, which was even more strange. Customers didn’t usually line up awaiting the official start of business except during our Black Friday, Christmas, or blow-out sales.

  But as I raced toward the door, I realized these weren’t customers. About a dozen people formed a loose line across the entrance. They held up homemade signs fastened to sticks with PAPER-PALOOZA POISONS THE PLANET scrawled across them in big green letters, and were chanting the same phrase.

  Oh my God. Protesters.

  Leave it to corporate.

  I swerved around them and dashed toward the door.

  Jeanette was standing inside.

  Today she had on a tan tent dress embellished with orange, brown, and gold geometric symbols and patterns around the hem.

  She looked like a human tepee.

  Jeanette watched my approach, then turned the key and let me in, frowning and looking more than slightly worried—though I’m sure it was her monthly bonus that
concerned her, not the safety and well-being of the store employees, should the situation with the protesters turn ugly.

  I slipped inside—forcing my gaze onto the floor so as not to sustain permanent retina damage from Jeanette’s I’ll-wear-anything-if-I-get-it-at-a-discount dress—and she locked the door behind me. I dashed to the breakroom and clocked in four seconds ahead of time—a personal best for me.

  Everyone else who’d already clocked in was headed out the door to the sales floor. I spotted Bella standing in front of one of the vending machines, finishing up a soda. She waited while I stowed my handbag—a gorgeous Prada satchel—in my locker.

  Bella’s apparent desire to escape was reflected in her hairstyle again today. She’d sculpted her hair into what seemed to be a biplane atop her head.

  “What the hell is wrong with all those people out front holding up those signs?” Bella asked. “It’s Saturday morning. They ought to be sleeping in.”

  “Or shopping—someplace other than Holt’s,” I said, as we walked out of the breakroom. “Where are you working today?”

  “They got me in the sewing department,” Bella grumbled. “I hate that department. That old lady who works there is always showing me pictures of her cats on her cell phone.”

  “Come work with me in the paper department,” I said. “Colleen’s supposed to be there today. Maybe she’ll trade with you.”

  Bella shook her head. “Something’s wrong with that girl.”

  Customers streamed through the aisles as Bella and I headed toward the back of the store and my assigned corner of where-did-it-all-go-so-wrong. I spotted Colleen straightening boxes of tissues in the Paper-Palooza as a dozen shoppers swarmed over the merchandise.

  “Hi, Haley. Hi, Bella,” Colleen said as she wiggled her way out of the throng of customers. “Wow, would you just look! Everybody loves our department! Isn’t it the coolest thing!”

  “No, not really,” I said. “Listen, Colleen, wouldn’t you like to swap with Bella and work in the sewing department today?”

  “You’re working in sewing today, Bella? Oh, wow, you’re so lucky,” Colleen said. “That lady who works there has the cutest pictures of her cats. You should ask her to show them to you.”