Sleuthing Women

by Lois Winston

  “Like what?”

  That question had kept me awake most of last night. “Something. Anything. I don’t know. But it’s not fair to use them to exonerate myself unless I have more proof.”

  “If you don’t report the fight, is it withholding evidence?”

  I hadn’t thought of that. Ralph’s squawks echoed in my brain. Double, double toil and trouble. Macbeth. Act Four, Scene One.

  Keeping new evidence from Batswin and Robbins could land me in a cauldron of bubbling trouble. One more black mark against me might be all the proof they needed to haul my tush off to the county jail. “But is what I heard evidence or hearsay?” I asked Cloris.

  She opened a third box and popped a boysenberry donut hole into her mouth. “Don’t look at me, Sherlock. I’m no walking, talking legal library.”

  “I think there’s a difference between refusing to answer a question and not volunteering information.”

  “Yeah, it’s called dancing on the head of a pin.”

  With two left feet, I thought.

  Before we could speculate further, Daphne arrived, summoning me to the conference room. “Those detectives are back snooping around,” she said. “They want to speak with you again.”

  “Thanks,” I said.

  She hugged her middle. “Those two give me the creeps. Especially the guy. Like I half expect him to whip off one of those cartoon ties he wears and use it to strangle a confession out of me. You know what I mean?”

  Cloris and I exchanged glances. “Is there something you haven’t told us?” I asked.

  Daphne’s eyes bugged out as she stepped away from me. “No! I didn’t...I mean...that’s not what I...”

  Cloris doubled over with laughter. “She’s pulling your leg.”

  Our shared assistant eyed me. “For real?”

  “For real. I thought you could use a laugh, but it was a bad joke. Tell them I’ll be right there, would you?”

  “Uhm...okay. Sure.” She nearly tripped over her feet as she jogged down the hall toward the conference room.

  “Looks like I won’t solve my financial problems by moonlighting as a stand-up comic.”

  “I don’t think Whoopi Goldberg has to worry about you breathing down her neck any time soon,” said Cloris.

  I started to leave, but she grabbed my arm. “Seriously, before you go in there, think about this: if the situation were reversed, would Naomi and Hugo protect you?”

  Probably not.

  ~*~

  Batswin and Robbins hadn’t come to ask more questions, though. They had come to deliver the sting money. “Nervous?” asked Batswin.

  “I’m used to playing with craft materials, not playing Mata Hari.” I stared into the navy canvas duffel she handed me and gulped.

  “Something wrong?” asked Batswin.

  “I’ve never seen this much money before.”

  “Don’t get any ideas,” said Robbins. “The bills are marked.”

  My head shot up. “Contrary to whatever erroneous opinion you have of me, Detective, I’m a law-abiding citizen. I’ve never stolen anything in my life, and I don’t plan to start now.”

  He puffed out his chest and glared back as if in challenge, but his tightly pursed lips didn’t move.

  Batswin handed me a white business envelope. “The only bag at Burberry that comes close to what you said Ricardo described is four hundred dollars. This contains four hundred twenty-eight dollars. Get a receipt.”

  “Of course.” Accountants rule the world, no matter what your line of business.

  I was glad that Batswin had thought to calculate the tax and add it to her catch-an-extortionist request from petty cash. The tax had slipped my mind. I knew I didn’t have an extra twenty-eight dollars in my wallet. Twelve or thirteen maybe. Definitely not more. Imagine the fiasco at the Burberry counter had I come up short.

  “We’re working in conjunction with the Essex County police,” said Robbins.

  I turned my attention back to him and for the first time noticed the dark red stain on his Green Hornet tie. Spaghetti sauce? Or blood from another murder case?

  “Officers will be positioned throughout the mall, in the store, and in the restroom,” he continued.

  Batswin took over. “When Ricardo calls to give you instructions for the drop, repeat what he says.”

  “So the officer in the restroom will hear me?”

  “Exactly.”

  “Will someone follow me to the mall?”

  “Several unmarked cars will tail you,” said Robbins. “Why?”

  Was I the only one among us who watched television? “In case all this cloak and dagger is Ricardo’s way of foiling a possible sting.”

  They both stared at me, their faces impassive. I spelled it out for them. “I don’t know what this guy looks like. What kind of car he drives. Neither do you. For all we know, he’s lurking in the parking lot at this very moment. Maybe his real plan is to force me off the road somewhere between here and the mall.”

  That triggered a more ominous thought which launched a lump of dread pinballing around my insides. Woods and fields hugged many of the roads that connected Trimedia to the mall. Woods and fields perfect for body dumping.

  “Even if I get to the mall without a hitch, who knows what wild goose chase he’s concocted for me after I buy the Burberry bag? His ultimate plan could involve grabbing the money, then ridding himself of the only witness to his extortion.” I thumbed my chest. “Me.”

  “We’ve covered all contingencies,” said Batswin.

  Instead of assuring me, her laid-back, monotone voice only increased my anxiety. “I have my kids to think of. If something goes wrong —”

  “Follow directions, and nothing will go wrong,” said Robbins.

  His gruff, irritable tone ratcheted my apprehension up beyond the stratosphere, but I had no choice other than to go along with the detectives’ strategy. Refusing to help them catch Ricardo, would add credence to their original theory—that I killed Marlys for the diamonds in order to pay off Ricardo—even if that theory had more holes in it than my kitchen colander. But that didn’t seem to matter to Batswin and Robbins.

  Dangerous as their scheme seemed, at least if it worked, I’d shake a two-thousand-pound gorilla off my back and have one less Karl-created debacle sucking me into the La Brea tar pit of debt. I zipped the canvas duffel and hoisted it onto my shoulder.

  “I’m ready,” I told Batswin and Robbins.

  As the detectives followed me out of the conference room, an image of Karl floated across my mind. Had my darling, deceased husband ever given us a thought as he gambled away our security and his sons’ futures?

  And how many other Ricardos had he left in his wake, waiting to pounce on me?

  Leaving Batswin and Robbins cooling their heels at the elevator, my anxieties and I headed back to my cubicle to retrieve my coat and purse. On the way, I bumped into Naomi and Erica. They both eyed the weighty bag dragging down my shoulder.

  “Weekend getaway?” asked Naomi.

  “I wish.”

  She returned her attention to the sheaf of papers in her hand, but Erica’s brows knit together as she continued to stare at the duffel. “I swear I saw Detective Robbins carry that same bag into the conference room earlier. Why do you have it now? What’s in it?”

  Naomi shifted her attention back to the duffel. She and Erica followed me into my cubicle.

  I worried the duffel strap as I wracked my brain for a plausible explanation. When I was seven years old, Mama had told me she knew when I lied because my face contorted into a smirk. I didn’t believe her until years later when I discovered I had passed along that same defective Fib Gene to Alex. Nick had inherited Karl’s Look-You-in-the-Eye-and-Lie-With-a-Straight-Face Gene.

  Turning my back to Naomi and Erica, I placed the duffel on my chair and answered while slipping into my coat. “Just some of my supplies the police confiscated during the murder investigation. Since they don’t need them for evidence,
they released them back to me.”

  With the lie out of my mouth and the smirk hopefully gone from my face, I heaved the duffel back onto my shoulder, grabbed my purse, and turned back to them. “I have a meeting with a yarn manufacturer. See you both Monday.”

  Naomi and Erica filled the doorway, blocking my exit. Neither made any effort to step aside.

  “Aren’t you forgetting something?” asked Erica.

  I glanced around the small space. I had my coat. My purse. I patted my pocket and heard my keys jingle. “I don’t think so.”

  Erica pointed to the duffel. “Why are you taking your supplies with you?”

  Think fast, Anastasia! “I...uhm...since I’ve been out of the office so much lately, I thought I’d get caught up on some work over the weekend.”

  Erica’s face grew more puzzled. I glanced at Naomi. Her haute couture composure had slipped a notch. Turmoil swam behind her normally focused eyes.

  Erica continued her questioning. “I don’t understand. I thought you had a studio at home. Why do you need to lug supplies back and forth?”

  Her questioning began to feel more like an interrogation than idle curiosity. Flippancy being the better part of cowardice, I chose to throw her bloodhound pursuit off the scent with a quip. “The dog ate them?”

  Before she had a chance to ask another question, I nudged her to the side, scooted around her, and headed for the elevator.

  TWENTY-TWO

  In the end, neither murder nor mayhem descended on me as I traveled the twenty miles to the mall. Not that my overactive imagination didn’t conjure up one dreadful scenario after another the entire length of the drive. But as it turned out, my biggest dilemma involved the Hyundai’s temperamental windshield defroster, not some behemoth SUV running me into a ditch.

  When I finally pulled into a parking spot in one of the covered garages, I loosened my death grip on the steering wheel. Although my nerves would never be the same, the first leg of this harebrained escapade had ended without physical trauma—blunt or otherwise—to my slightly overweight, middle-aged body.

  Maybe my worries were groundless. Batswin and Robbins would nab Ricardo as planned, and I’d be home in time for another night of mac and cheese. I tried to convince both myself and my queasy stomach of that possibility as I entered the mall and headed for the Burberry store.

  The main difference between the Short Hills Mall and the Upper East Side of New York is a roof. The same upscale, pricey boutiques and shops that line either side of Madison and Fifth Avenues occupy two polished marble floors under a skylight in Short Hills, New Jersey. Five of the finest department stores in the country act as anchors and add to the sophisticated ambiance.

  Up until recently, I had enjoyed window-shopping at the mall on rainy weekends. Sometimes I even succumbed to an impulse splurge—if it was on sale. Now the sight of all these chi-chi shops only reminded me of my recent fall from Middle-classdom.

  My glance darted around the concourse as I made my way toward Burberry. Hand-in-hand couples, women pushing baby carriages, and matrons laden with packages strolled or rushed from shop to shop. Here and there a single man loitered outside one of the stores.

  A bored husband waiting for his wife?

  An undercover cop?

  Ricardo?

  Afraid to know one way or the other, I avoided eye contact with all of them, clutched the duffel tighter, and picked up my pace.

  Two other customers, both men, were in Burberry. One contemplated a rack of lined raincoats; the other fingered the fringe on a selection of scarves arranged on the counter in front of him. Salesmen hovered near each. As I made my way over to the display of totes, I felt all four men’s eyes tracking my every move.

  A woman wearing a café au lait Chanel suit, over which she had draped a signature Burberry scarf, stepped from the back room. She had pinned the scarf in place below her left shoulder with a gold initial pin. Opposite the pin, above her right breast, she wore a nameplate, identifying her as Nanette. From her perfectly coifed platinum pageboy down to her matching Burberry plaid pumps, Nanette looked more like a society matron than a salesclerk.

  Her sad smile made me wonder if we belonged to the same Wronged Wives Club. Had her husband died and left her wallowing in debt? Or had he dumped her for a trophy wife? Nanette certainly didn’t look like she’d spent her life in retail. More likely she now had to supplement her monthly Social Security check by working where she had once shopped.

  Or maybe she was a damn good undercover cop.

  “May I help you?” she asked.

  “I’d like one of these totes,” I said, pointing to the appropriate bag.

  “Certainly.” She left the tote in the display and headed back toward the stock room. As I waited, I glanced across the room. The two shoppers and their salesmen quickly averted their eyes. I hoped they were all cops and not Ricardo with a posse of henchmen.

  A minute later Nanette returned with a box. “Anything else?”

  Did I look like I was rolling in money? I shook my head. “No, that’ll be all.”

  “Cash or charge?”

  “Cash.” I opened my purse, removed the envelope, and counted out the four one hundred dollar bills, one twenty, a five, and three singles.

  “Would you like me to gift-wrap this for you?” she asked after I had paid for the tote and placed the receipt back in the envelope.

  “No, thank you.”

  Nanette placed the box in a shopping bag, thanked me for shopping at Burberry, then offered me the standard end-of-sale retail mantra, “Have a nice day.”

  The entire transaction had taken less than five minutes. The four men watched me leave, but none of them followed as I exited the store and headed across the concourse to the ladies’ room.

  The mall restroom suite looked more like those found in five-star hotels. A large black and white marble lounge with mirrored walls and oversized black leather chairs branched out into a ladies’ room at one end and a men’s room at the other. Stalls in the ladies’ room were the size of department store dressing rooms.

  Three other adults occupied the lounge. One woman primped in front of the mirror at the far end of the room. Another sat in one of the chairs and nursed an infant, while a man, presumably her husband, tried to cajole an extremely fussy toddler.

  I entered the ladies’ room and glanced around. Three women, all of them chatting about the sale at Bloomingdale’s, washed their hands at the sink. Seven women stood in line, waiting for stalls to free up. I took my place behind them. One-by-one toilets flushed, women exited stalls, and I crept forward.

  Eventually I secured the stall Ricardo had indicated, locked the door, and settled my bags on the pull-down baby-changing table. I had yet to hear from Ricardo. Before transferring the money from the duffel to the tote, I checked my phone to make sure the battery hadn’t died. The indicator showed I had plenty of juice left.

  The ladies’ room felt like a sauna. Warm air blasted down from a vent in the ceiling. I removed my stadium coat and draped it over the hook on the door.

  In the stall directly across the aisle, a woman cajoled a recalcitrant child to go potty. To my right, another woman multitasked. While doing her business, she gossiped on her cell phone in a voice loud enough to be heard in the parking garage. As I withdrew bound stacks of hundred dollar bills from the duffel and placed them in the tote, I learned more than I cared to about someone named Eileen, her bladder, her intestines, and her philandering husband.

  Eventually, both my neighbors left and others took their place, but Ricardo still hadn’t called. I pushed up the sleeves of my sweater, swiped the perspiration from my forehead, and fanned myself with the folded shopping bag.

  More women came, flushed, and left. I glanced at my watch. Nearly an hour had passed since I first entered the ladies’ room. How long was I supposed to wait?

  After another ten minutes I grabbed my packages and coat and headed for the sink to splash cold water on my face, neck, and arms.
Then I walked out to the lounge.

  Another woman, dressed in a pink and purple running suit and white Reeboks, exited the ladies’ room behind me. She scanned the room before taking up a position several feet away from me.

  The couple with the baby and toddler were gone, but the primper remained in front of the mirror, a good indication that she was the designated lounge cop. She wore a pair of black jeans, a gray Columbia University sweatshirt, and a pair of black Nikes. For someone who had spent the last hour in front of a mirror, her face was decidedly devoid of makeup, and her hair was pulled back into a no-nonsense ponytail. Definitely a cop.

  I watched her watch me as I deposited my bags and coat on one of the overstuffed chairs and settled into the one beside it. Uncertainty played across her face. I had revised the script, and I suppose she wasn’t sure how to proceed. Too bad. Unless Ricardo was a fly on the wall, he wouldn’t know the difference. Besides, I couldn’t deliver his money if I fell victim to an overdose of blast furnace heat.

  The primping policewoman took a seat as far away from me as possible but positioned herself in such a way that she had a bird’s-eye view of me, along with everyone who entered and exited the lounge. She and the purple-clad woman exchanged glances.

  I pulled out my cell phone and stared at the blank display. Ring, dammit! But will as I might, the frigging phone failed to comply.

  More people came and went. Some sat for a few minutes before leaving. They made phone calls or rearrange shopping bags of purchases or just rested from having shopped until they dropped. Others headed straight for the ladies’ or men’s rooms, then hurried back out into the mall. Several times the two shoppers from Burberry walked through the lounge to the men’s room, then left as quickly as they’d come.

  I continued to check my watch and the display on my phone. The minutes crept by in slow motion. By eight-fifteen I’d had enough. I waited until only the purple-clad woman and the primper remained in the lounge, then announced, “He’s jerking me around.”