Clutches and Curses

by Dorothy Howell

  I shot out of my chair and screamed, “I’ll go! I’ll go to Vegas! I can leave tonight!”

  “You’re late, okay?”

  For a minute I thought I was having a Rita flashback.

  I’d just walked through the front door of the new Holt’s store near Vegas—technically, it was Henderson—and a Rita wanna-be had stomped over. She looked nothing like Rita—rail thin, fortyish, with long gray-streaked hair—but she had that same I-love-being-a-bitch look on her face.

  “I’m Fay, the cashiers’ supervisor, okay, and you’re late,” she said again.

  She had a deep, nasal voice, like she needed her tonsils and adenoids removed—or maybe she’d already had them removed. I don’t know. I haven’t taken anatomy yet.

  “We start work at eight sharp, okay?” Fay said. “Just because you’re out of your usual store, don’t think you can take advantage, okay?”

  I didn’t say anything.

  She didn’t seem to notice.

  “Check in at the office, okay?” Fay said, gesturing toward the back of the store. She pointed to a flip chart on an easel near the front door. “Look for your name and your department assignment on the chart every day when you come in, okay? At eight. Don’t be late.”

  Fay was, apparently, totally unconcerned that I looked like absolute crap. And I was about to point that out, but she walked away. No doubt I’d find time to tell her later. Already, I could see it would be a long day.

  It had sure been a long night.

  Jeanette hadn’t hesitated to approve my temporary reassignment to the Henderson store—which might have hurt my feelings, or at least made me suspicious of something, if I hadn’t been so desperate to get out of town—so I’d dashed home to pack. Marcie met me at my apartment, as a best friend would, promised to get my mail and keep an eye on the place, and had even found an old high school classmate on Facebook now living in Henderson that I could hook up with. I’d fought it at first—the girl, Courtney, and I were not exactly BFFs back in the day—but Marcie thought I should know somebody in town, especially with this whole curse thing hanging over me, so I’d agreed.

  The five-hour trip had taken twelve hours. Traffic was miserable. Apparently, there was an octogenarian convention in Vegas and I’d gotten trapped at the end of the convoy.

  A tire blew somewhere in the vast expanse of desert, stranding me on the side of the road in the dark, in the middle of nowhere, with no cell phone reception. Hours passed before a highway patrol car spotted me and stopped. More hours passed before the auto club guy got there to change my tire. Luckily, the provisions I’d packed—I’d gone with an all-chocolate theme—and the mental image of the Delicious handbag, the totally hot, fantastic, gorgeous purse that I absolutely had to have, helped pass the hours.

  The mental image of the Sinful handbag—the last totally hot, fantastic, gorgeous purse I’d absolutely had to have—had also popped into my thoughts for a few seconds. After an all-out search of every department store and specialty shop in Southern California a few weeks ago, I’d all but given up on finding one. Then, out of the blue, I got one. But no way did I want to look at that bag and be reminded of the guy who gave it to me. I was done with him—forever, hopefully. So I’d given it away. Without a second thought. That’s how much I didn’t like that guy.

  By the time I made it to Henderson, I was already late, so I went straight to the store instead of checking into the hotel the Holt’s employees were staying in. Only to be treated like crap when I arrived. Guess I shouldn’t have been surprised. It was, after all, Holt’s

  No one at Holt’s knew I was dating—and possibly moving in with—the owner of the chain, and of course I didn’t want my personal business to be common knowledge—unless it benefited me, of course. Like now.

  I was exhausted, cranky, hungry, and I probably smelled bad, and I wanted to crash at the hotel. I was sure that once the manager on duty heard my story—and got a whiff of me—I’d be out the door right away.

  I headed for the rear of the store. The place looked huge without the merchandise. Beige carpet had been laid. Heavy manila paper was taped over the tiled areas of the floors. A few display shelves and racks had been installed.

  People ran around like farm animals. Workmen were busy hammering, sawing, drilling things, dragging power cords, climbing on ladders into the ceiling, making all kinds of racket. Employees pushed U-boats and Z-rails full of merchandise, unloading and stocking shelves. Empty boxes were everywhere. A couple of janitors ran vacuum cleaners. A half-dozen employees huddled around a bank of cash registers.

  As I passed what would eventually become the women’s clothing department—all Holt’s stores were laid out the same, as if customers wouldn’t have sense enough to read the signs—I noticed a dark red stain on the carpet at the entrance to the dressing room. I recognized it immediately. Bolt.

  Jeez, I sure could use a hit of that stuff right now. Just the energy boost I needed to make it to the hotel.

  The trail of Bolt that darkened the carpet led into the dressing room. I followed it and I knew without a doubt that the employee I’d find on break in the dressing room drinking this stuff would instantly become my new BFF.

  Or maybe not.

  Whoever it was had really gone nuts with the energy drink. It was splattered up and down the walls and on the carpet of the narrow hallway that ran alongside the changing rooms.

  The place smelled weird.

  I got a weird feeling.

  At the end of the row, I pushed open the door of the handicapped changing room. A young woman lay sprawled on the floor, blood covering her neck, chest, right shoulder, and arm. Dead.

  CHAPTER 3

  “Hi. I’m Haley Randolph. I’m from the Santa Clarita store,” I said.

  I was standing in front of the store manager’s desk in his office at the back of the store. It was in a little suite of offices—exactly like in every other Holt’s store—just past the customer service booth and the employee breakroom, outside the training room.

  Preston, the store manager, looked up and smiled.

  “Yes, indeed you are Haley Randolph,” he agreed, then tapped his computer screen. “I received an e-mail from Jeanette, your store manager, advising me that you’d arrive this morning. And here you are!”

  I figured him for maybe mid-fifties, dark hair, balding, and kind of soft, like he should have spent a little less time at his desk and a little more time at the gym. He had on a white short-sleeve shirt with a necktie, a look that screamed I’m-single-and-I-dress-myself. Preston seemed a little too chipper to have been a store manager for very long.

  “I’ve got some bad news,” I said.

  “Oh, no, no, no,” Preston said, still smiling as he wagged his finger at me. “We don’t accept bad news at this store. I won’t allow it!”

  Yeah, he’d just made store manager, all right.

  There’s no easy way to tell someone that you’ve found a dead body—I know this from experience—particularly that someone who will ultimately be responsible for juggling cops, detectives, crime scene people, the media, distraught employees, and, of course, the corporate office. So there’s no need to waste mental energy trying to think up a way to sugarcoat it, or waste time easing into the topic. It’s best to just say it.

  “I have your time card right here,” Preston said, selecting it from one of the neat stacks of papers on his desk.

  Okay, so maybe the news could wait. After all, that girl in the dressing room wouldn’t be any less dead two minutes from now.

  I took my time card, walked to the breakroom, punched in, and returned to Preston’s office.

  “There’s a dead body in the women’s dressing room,” I said.

  He just looked at me. Then, slowly, his brows drew together.

  “A . . . what?” he asked. “A dead—what?”

  “Body,” I said.

  Preston gazed across the room at nothing, then turned to me again. “But that’s—that’s just not po
ssible.”

  It takes awhile for this sort of news to sink in, but I had my doubts that Preston was going to come to terms with it anytime soon. So what could I do but take over?

  “Get the supervisors on duty to cover the exits. Don’t let anyone in or out of the store. Get on the P.A. and tell all the employees to come to the training room. The detectives will want to question them,” I told him. “And you need to call nine-one-one.”

  Preston still just looked at me.

  “Now.” I clapped my hands together. “Let’s go. Move it.”

  I guess my decisiveness spurred him into action. He rushed out of the office and down the hallway.

  I probably should have gone into the training room where all the other store employees would assemble, but I didn’t want to. I headed into the breakroom instead.

  Two Snickers bars, a Milky Way, six miniature Almond Joys, a bag of peanut M&Ms, the current issues of Marie Claire, Vogue, and In Style later, the breakroom door swung open and Preston came in.

  “There you are,” he declared and plastered his hand on his chest. “I’ve been looking for you. I couldn’t find you.”

  Considering that he hadn’t even known there was a dead body in his store, I wasn’t surprised.

  “These detectives want to talk to you,” Preston said, gesturing behind him.

  Two men followed him into the room. Homicide detectives. I knew their kind.

  They’d probably already checked out the crime scene and done all the things homicide detectives do in a situation like this. Since I had the dubious distinction of finding the body, I knew they’d get to me sooner, rather than later.

  Talking to homicide detectives—or anyone in law enforcement, for that matter—isn’t something to be taken lightly. Believe me, I know. So I was ready for them.

  Thanks to a massive intake of sugar and caffeine, courtesy of the breakroom vending machines, my brain cells were humming at peak condition, ready to field, deflect, and sidestep their questions, as necessary.

  “This is Detective Dailey,” Preston said, pointing. “And this is Detective Webster.”

  At first glance, Detective Dailey appeared to be nearing retirement age, thanks to a full head of white-gray hair; but on closer inspection, I downgraded him to late forties. He was tall, over six feet, with wide straight shoulders and a strong build that made me think he’d been a football player back in the day and still appreciated a good workout. He had on a houndstooth jacket and an okay-looking shirt and tie. Probably the best he could afford on a cop’s salary. He looked like the kind of easygoing man you could be comfortable with.

  Lots of times I can tell if I’m going to like somebody just by looking at them. It’s a science, an art—no, it’s a gift—and it had served me well at many an employment interview, party, and bar.

  I didn’t like Detective Webster the minute I laid eyes on him. Judging from the look I got in return, he felt the same about me.

  He was okay looking, in his mid-thirties, only a couple of inches taller than my five-foot-nine height, and probably outweighed me by ten pounds, at most. He had dark hair. He also had a stinky look on his face, like he was trying to prove something, like he was always right, like he was smarter than everybody else.

  If Dailey was a shepherd, Webster was a terrier.

  I hate terriers.

  After pleasantries—such as they were—were exchanged, we all settled at one of the breakroom tables. Preston yanked his cell phone out of his pocket and claimed he had to answer a call. He said it was on vibrate, but I doubted it. I figured he just wanted to get out of the room.

  Wish I’d thought of that.

  But no sense in delaying this interview. I had nothing to hide, nothing to cover up. No way were these detectives going to cause me a minute’s worry. I wanted to get this over with, get to the hotel, and crash before the brain-boosting snacks I’d eaten—strictly to aid law enforcement, of course—wore off.

  Detective Dailey got the preliminaries out of the way quickly by asking my name and address and the name of the hotel I would be staying at, and checking my I.D. while Webster wrote it in a little notebook he carried.

  “You’re here to help with the opening of the store?” Dailey asked.

  “Yes,” I said.

  “From Los Angeles?” he asked.

  “Santa Clarita,” I said. “It’s a little north of L.A.”

  “And you got here this morning?”

  “Yes,” I said.

  I figured he’d already asked Preston these things and just wanted to hear me say them to make sure the story stayed the same.

  No problem.

  Still, Detective Webster was writing down everything I said like it was really important. That weirded me out a little.

  “What made you decide to drive up here to work?” Dailey asked.

  The key to being questioned by homicide detectives was to be brief in your answers. Don’t talk any more than necessary. Don’t give away much. Don’t volunteer anything.

  So I saw no need to tell him about the crazy old woman who’d claimed to put a curse on me, my dented fender, the traffic ticket, or my mom’s demand to take me to the spa for a week with the beauty queens. Really, none of that was relevant.

  “It just seemed like a good opportunity,” I told him, pleased that the liberal chocolate coating I’d applied to my brain cells had my thoughts clicking along like stilettos on a New York catwalk.

  Detective Dailey looked at me as if that weren’t enough of an answer. I pressed my lips together to keep from saying anything else. That’s the mistake criminals always made on those detective shows on television. They started blabbing and didn’t shut up. No way was I doing that.

  “How did you happen to find the body?” Dailey asked.

  “I saw the stain on the carpet and thought it was Bolt, so I—”

  “Bolt?” Detective Webster shot the question at me like it was a bullet from a 9mm handgun.

  “It’s an energy drink Holt’s is selling,” I explained.

  Detective Webster wrote that down, for some reason.

  “I followed the stain on the carpet into the dressing room,” I said. “That’s when I found the dead girl.”

  “Why would you do that? Follow the trail?” Dailey asked. “Why not find the janitor to clean it up?”

  Good question. Damn, these homicide detectives were quick—and I doubted they were jacked up on chocolate.

  Explaining that I’d planned to take a break and guzzle some Bolt—as I’d done in the Santa Clarita store—might not cast me in the best light. It’s not a crime, but still. No need to get too deep into things.

  “I just wanted to see how big the stain was so I could tell the janitor what he’d need to clean it,” I said.

  Okay, that sounded lame. Jeez, had my chocolate-charged superbrain let me down? Already?

  “Did you know the victim?” Detective Dailey asked.

  “No,” I said.

  Webster wrote that down. I saw him underline it.

  I don’t like him.

  “Ever seen her before?” Dailey asked.

  “Never,” I said.

  Webster wrote that down, too. He underlined it twice.

  Now I really don’t like him.

  Detective Dailey leaned back in his chair. “Come to Henderson often?” he asked.

  “Vegas a few times a year,” I said. “I always stay on The Strip.”

  Dailey nodded and rose from his chair. He looked a little tired, slightly weary, as if he’d hoped I could give him more info, help him solve this crime.

  A murder in a department store that catered to families wasn’t good for business, wouldn’t draw the hordes of Vegas shoppers out to Henderson. I figured Detective Dailey was under some pressure to solve this murder quickly.

  “Thank you, Miss Randolph,” he said and left.

  Detective Webster followed him out of the room. At the door, he looked back and gave me a stinky look—for a second, I thought he might
put another curse on me—then left.

  I silently clicked him over into my mental I-hate-you category. I expected Webster got that a lot.

  I left the breakroom, more than anxious to put Dailey, Webster, the Holt’s store, and the murder victim in my rearview mirror. I was coming down from my chocolate high and needed to get some sleep.

  Of course, I could have found Preston and told him I was leaving or, at the very least, hunted down Fay and let her know. But I didn’t want to take the chance they’d give me a hard time about it. I was too tired to argue. So I clocked out and left.

  The Holt’s store was located in a shopping center on Valle Verde Road, just off the 215 freeway. Some other store had once occupied the building, gone under, and left Holt’s to snap up the property. Lots of smaller stores were in the complex—a nail salon, real estate office, gift shop, dry cleaner, café. Across the parking lot was a Pizza Hut restaurant.

  I took Valle Verde Road south, then hung a right on St. Rose Parkway, where the motel that Holt’s had booked for its employees was located. St. Rose Parkway, was huge, ten lanes wide—more lanes than the road to get to Vegas—as if the Henderson gods of commerce had big plans for the place.

  And they were getting their wish, obviously. A zillion stores, shops, strip malls, restaurants, gas stations, condos, and housing tracts lined the highway with acres of empty lots in between awaiting future development. Off to the right, in the distance, stood the huge resorts and casinos that line The Strip.

  I caught sight of the big sign on the left side of the highway that rose above the Culver Inn Motel, my home away from home for the next couple of weeks. I swung into the parking lot and pulled to a stop in the check-in lane.

  All I could think was that, thank the stars above, I’d gotten here. I was mentally and physically exhausted, and wanted nothing more than to crash for a millennium or two.

  I passed through the automatic doors into the lobby. Holt’s had not, by any stretch of the imagination, booked us into the kind of glitz and glam hotel Vegas was known for. This place looked as if the set dresser for That 70s Show had retired to Henderson.

  It was decorated with sturdy industrial furniture in shades of burnt orange, brown, and avocado green that showed signs of wear. The registration desk was off to the left, and on the right was a small furniture grouping—the Culver Inn’s idea of a lobby seating area, I guess. Beyond that were a dozen small tables and chairs, and along the back wall a continental breakfast buffet was laid out. A couple of people sat eating and sipping coffee, reading the newspaper and pecking away at laptops.