Slay Bells and Satchels (Haley Randolph Mystery Series) Read online

  Oh my God. Oh my God.

  There was an elf inside.

  Dead.

  Chapter 2

  “There’s a dead elf in the stockroom,” I said.

  Jeanette didn’t look frightened, alarmed, or worried, just annoyed—at me. Like it was my fault, or something.

  “I already called 9-1-1,” I said.

  She huffed, pulled out her cell phone and started punching buttons calling, I was sure, the corporate office.

  We’d been through this before—long story—so we both knew the drill.

  The elves—all nine of them—were gathered near the fireplace. A few of them were waving to the customers waiting outside, some were talking to each other, most were checking themselves out in the mirrors by the Sportswear Department.

  “Excuse me,” I called, using my there’s-nothing-to-be-alarmed-about voice. The elves quieted down and turned to me, and I immediately launched into my you-can-trust-me voice. “Would you all come with me, please?”

  I turned and walked away. With men, I found this always worked. Men followed, no matter what. Not so with women.

  I glanced back and saw the elves still clustered by the fireplace, whispering and giving each other questioning looks.

  “Just a change of plans,” I said, using my it’s-no-big-deal voice.

  It was an outright lie, of course, but what else could I do? I had to get the elves sequestered in the training room so the homicide detectives could question them.

  I motioned for them to follow and they did. I led them to the training room in the back of the store.

  “The store manager will be here in a few minutes,” I told them.

  I intended to make my escape and let Jeanette break the news—I’m sure that was covered in her Holt’s management training course, well, pretty sure—so I headed for the door.

  “Somebody’s missing,” an elf called.

  I turned back and saw one of the girls doing a head count.

  “There’re only nine of us,” she said. “Someone’s not here.”

  Miss Helpful. Great. Thank you so much.

  “It’s McKenna,” someone else said. “McKenna’s not here.”

  “She’s probably setting up interviews for her personal assistant,” someone else said, in a snarky voice.

  A few of the girls laughed.

  Someone else said, “Or maybe she’s shopping for her beach condo.”

  “Bitch,” another girl murmured.

  Jeanette appeared. No way did I want to be around when she broke the news to the girls. I closed the door and headed for the break room.

  The chocolate in the vending machines called to me—yes, actually called. It’s never too early in the day to have a Snickers bar, and since I’d just discovered a dead body at my crappier-than-crappy part-time job, I saw no reason not to heed its sirens song.

  Still, maybe it could wait a couple of minutes.

  I’d called 9-1-1 from the stockroom as soon as I’d found the dead elf in the toy bag—we’re not supposed to keep our cell phones on us during duty hours, but we’re not supposed to keep a dead elf in the stockroom either. I knew the cops, detectives, and crime scene investigators would show up soon. I decided to take another look around before they got there.

  I don’t have professional training, of course, but I do have mad Scooby Doo skills. Besides, I’d already been in there once, so I figured I couldn’t screw up the crime scene if I went back.

  I glanced up and down the hallway, saw that no one was around, and slipped into the stockroom.

  The giant toy bag lay just where I left it. It creeped me out looking at it.

  Scattered across the floor and piled up nearby were the Christmas decorations that had been knocked off the shelving unit. Some of the glass ornaments were broken. Yards of green garland and dozens of spools of red ribbon were jumbled in with a mound of wooden nutcrackers, the ones that look like soldiers with gaping mouths.

  Those things creep me out, too.

  I figured that McKenna—I guess she was the victim since the other elves had said she was missing from the training room—had struggled with her attacker and knocked everything onto the floor.

  Her assailant must have emptied the contents of the giant toy bag and stuffed her inside, after the deed was done. Small household and kitchen appliances, electric razors and toothbrushes, holiday placemat and napkins sets—apparently, Holt’s had planned to give away “toys” to all ages—were mixed with teddy bears, coloring books and crayons, and wooden puzzles, and dumped on top of the Christmas decorations.

  Obviously, McKenna’s death wasn’t an accident or suicide—you don’t need mad skills to know she hadn’t offed herself, then crawled into the giant toy bag to die—and that meant she’d been murdered.

  I got a really creepy feeling.

  I looked around. The loading bay doors were still closed. The back door I’d thought the janitor had opened was still open. No sign of the janitor.

  I spotted a puddle of blood seeping from under a pile of large, wooden candy canes.

  Yuck. I wanted out of there.

  I headed for the door.

  It burst open in front of me.

  Homicide detectives Madison and Shuman walked in.

  Oh, crap.

  “Leaving the scene of the crime, I see, Miss Randolph,” Detective Madison said, looking smug. “Seems I’m getting an early Christmas present this year.”

  Detective Madison hated me. But that’s okay. I hated him, too.

  He was way overdue for retirement, and looked it. His comb-over had thinned even more and his jowls hung lower than the last time I saw him. He had a round belly that definitely shook when he laughed like a bowl full of jelly—not that he ever laughed, around me, anyway. Madison had made it his mission to find me guilty of something.

  Detective Shuman didn’t hate me. I didn’t hate him, either.

  He was thirtyish, with brown hair, and kind of handsome—not that I ever noticed, of course, since I have an official boyfriend. Shuman had an official girlfriend that he absolutely adored. So, officially, there was nothing going on between Shuman and me. Officially.

  “I’ll leave you two to your work,” I said, and skirted around the detectives.

  Madison blocked my path.

  “Oh, no, let’s get to the good stuff, like opening the biggest present first on Christmas morning,” he said, rubbing his palms together. “You were in charge of the actresses who were portraying elves here today, weren’t you?”

  I guess he’d already talked to Jeanette.

  “Well, yes,” I said. “But that only happened this morning, just a short while ago, really.”

  “So it was a crime of opportunity,” Madison said. “Is that what you’re telling me, Miss Randolph?”

  “No,” I insisted.

  “So what sort of crime was it?” he asked, leaning closer.

  I glanced at Shuman. He looked worried.

  Not good.

  “I had nothing to do with McKenna’s murder,” I said.

  Madison snapped to attention, as if I’d just confessed to something.

  “So you knew the victim,” he declared.

  “No, I just heard the other girls talking about her,” I told him.

  He went on as if I hadn’t spoken.

  “And you knew she’d been murdered,” he declared.

  Well, I guess he had me on that.

  “You supposedly found the body,” Madison went on. “You found her when you were alone in the stockroom. Isn’t that right, Miss Randolph?”

  Okay, he had me on that, too.

  But he was making it sound as if I’d actually done something wrong.

  “I didn’t kill her,” I insisted.

  Detective Madison narrowed his beady little eyes at me until they almost disappeared, and leaned closer.

  “We’ll find out,” he said. Madison jerked his thumb toward the door. “You can go now.”

  I was glad to leave, but a li
ttle miffed at being dismissed. Still, I didn’t want to hang around and see McKenna’s body when the investigators from the coroner’s office showed up and pulled her out of the bag.

  I brushed past the detectives.

  “Don’t leave town, Miss Randolph,” Detective Madison called.

  I pushed through the stockroom door without answering.

  I took a lap through the store just to burn off the negative energy Detective Madison had left me with. I was supposed to work in the Domestics Department today, but no way could I face that right now.

  The aisles were crowded with shoppers, a couple of babies were crying, some lady was yelling at her husband—why on earth do women take their husbands shopping with them?—and a group of teenage girls was swarming the lingerie department like locusts in a Kansas wheat field.

  Everybody seemed to be in the Christmas spirit—spending-wise, at least. Lots of people had full carts, others juggled items in their arms. I spotted several customers in Santa costumes.

  Apparently, public humiliation wasn’t too high a price for some people to pay when a huge discount was dangled in front of them.

  Nobody, it seemed, knew that an elf had been murdered in the stockroom. Hopefully, it wouldn’t make the news. Holt’s had a good PR department and knew how to handle this sort of thing—believe me, I know. I’d heard Ty talking to them often enough during one of our supposed dates.

  At the front of the store I spotted Sandy standing beside the fake fireplace wearing a Holt’s-issued Santa hat. Sandy was another of my Holt’s BFFs. She was in her early twenties, a white girl with red hair that she usually wore in a ponytail. Sandy was super nice—so nice that when her boyfriend—he’s a tattoo artist she met on the Internet—treated her like crap—which was almost all the time—she didn’t even notice.

  A few customers had gathered outside the red velvet ropes that cordoned off the fireplace and others were busy filling out contest entry forms at the little tables set up nearby. I circled around to the back of the display so the customers wouldn’t overhear.

  “What’s going on?” I asked Sandy. “Where are the elves?”

  “Jeanette told me to run the drawing,” Sandy said. “The elves were completely traumatized by the news. I guess they all know each other.”

  I wondered if they knew that girl who used to work here at Holt’s—I can never remember her name—the one who used to stink up the break room with her diet meals. She’d lost eighty pounds, or something, gone blonde, swapped her glasses for contacts, and gotten an agent. Last I heard she was doing really great, modeling for print ads.

  I hate her, of course.

  “So, anyway,” Sandy said, “Jeanette let them have the day off—with pay.”

  “With—what?”

  How come I didn’t get the day off—with pay? I’d found the dead elf. Didn’t she think I might be traumatized, too?

  More likely Jeanette figured the elves might sue Holt’s and I wouldn’t.

  Neither Ty nor I had ever come right out and told Jeanette we were dating, but I’m sure she knew—long story. Ty preferred to keep his personal life quiet, which was understandable, but I didn’t see any reason why I shouldn’t get some preferential treatment around here out of the deal.

  “Are the elves coming back tomorrow?” I asked Sandy.

  She shrugged. “I don’t know. Most of them were really upset about what happened. They were afraid.”

  I doubted some whack-job, psycho elf murderer was on the loose, but you never knew. This was, after all, L.A.

  “And you know what this means for our contest,” Sandy said.

  There was a contest?

  “All the employees are really excited about winning a big prize,” she said.

  Then I remembered that we were supposed to hit up customers for a donation to the children’s Christmas toy charity drive, and that the store that collected the most money won a prize.

  “Without those elves here, I don’t know if we have a chance of winning,” Sandy said. “I wish you hadn’t told everybody about that dead elf in the stockroom.”

  “What was I supposed to do? Leave her there?”

  Sandy shook her head. “Some of the employees think you blew our chances of pulling off a big win.”

  “The prizes were probably really lame, anyway,” I said.

  “Still,” Sandy said. “I’m just saying.”

  “Whatever. I’ve got to go,” I said.

  I headed through the store again in the general direction of the Domestics Department, but was in no rush to actually report there, or do any actual work.

  I thought I’d done enough for Holt’s today.

  Since Jeanette and most of the department managers were probably still in the offices dealing with the police investigation, I saw no reason not to take full advantage of the situation.

  I walked to the Shoe Department, careful—as always—to keep my eyes straight forward and move at a rapid pace to discourage customers from attempting to stop me and ask for help. I hurried between the racks of shoes, and slipped into the stockroom.

  The Shoe Department had its own stockroom. Since the shelves had to be replenished so often, management didn’t want employees abandoning the sales floor for long periods of time to fetch shoes from the big stockroom at the back of the store.

  I guess they thought some employees might take advantage of the situation and just hang out in there. I mean, really, who would do such a thing?

  Anyway, the Shoe Department stockroom was filled with shelves of shoes, of course, but it also had a little desk, chair and telephone for the department manager to use.

  Like management didn’t think anyone would take advantage of those things?

  Inside the stockroom, I closed the door, dropped into the desk chair, and whipped out my cell phone.

  My day needed a boost. So what could lift my spirits better than talking to my official boyfriend?

  I punched in Ty’s number, my mind filling with the image of him.

  At this time of day he would be at the Holt’s corporate headquarters in downtown Los Angeles. He’d be wearing one of his expensive suits with a perfectly coordinated shirt and tie, his light brown hair combed carefully into place. He’d be sitting at his ridiculously overpriced desk, in his bigger-than-most-two-bedroom-apartments office, with an amazing view that jacked up the price of the building to equal the gross national product of most South American countries. He’d be making decisions that involved millions of dollars and affected the lives of thousands of people. He’d see my name on his caller I.D. screen. He’d stop everything. All the problems facing Holt’s would have to come to a standstill because I was calling. He’d answer on the first ring because he would be so thrilled to talk to me.

  Just before the sixth ring when his voicemail would pick up—I know this because I’d heard his phone ring a few billion times—Ty answered.

  “Yeah?” he said.

  “Hi,” I said. “How’s your morning?”

  “What? Hang on.” I heard him talking to someone in the background, then he came back on the line. “Haley? Yeah, what’s up?”

  “Nothing,” I said. “I just had a rough morning and I wanted to—”

  “Hang on.” Ty spoke to someone for a minute or so, then came back to me. “I heard what happened this morning.”

  I doubted he’d heard that I’d found the body, or that my old nemesis Detective Madison was on the case and had already decided I was a suspect.

  I saw no reason to tell Ty those things.

  “P.R. already has a lid on it,” Ty said. “I don’t think it will affect sales.”

  “You’re being a really crappy boyfriend right now,” I told him.

  Ty went silent. I pictured him frozen in place, thinking, analyzing what I’d said, trying to determine whether I was right or wrong, and envisioning what the ramifications of taking each side of the issue would mean to our future—mostly, because Ty was definitely a male, whether this would impact how
soon I’d have sex with him again.

  Ty’s no dummy. He came to his decision in about three seconds.

  “You really had a rough morning, babe,” he said. “The whole thing must have been terribly upsetting. I hate you had to go through that. You shouldn’t be exposed to that sort of thing.”

  “You could ease my troubles by taking me out to dinner tonight,” I offered.

  “Oh.”

  I guess that was my answer.

  “I’m heading to New York,” Ty said, shifting into business mode again.

  “Now?” I asked.

  “Something came up,” he said. I heard voices in the background again, and things being shuffled around. “I’ll only be there a couple of days. When I come back I’ll take you any place you’d like. I promise.”

  “You’re really being a crappy boyfriend right now,” I said.

  “Yes, I know, and I’m sorry,” Ty said. “But I’ll make it up to you. I swear.”

  “You’d better,” I told him.

  “I will. I’ll talk to you later,” he said, and hung up.

  I rose from the chair and shoved my cell phone into my pocket. Crap. So much for my day getting a boost.

  I couldn’t help but notice that Ty hadn’t asked me to accompany him to New York. I’d been to Europe with him on a business trip—long story—and, surprise-surprise, he was no fun. Still, it would have been nice to be invited, and with a murder investigation underway and me a sort-of suspect, it would be a great time for me to leave town.

  Another more depressing thought flew into my head.

  What if Ty had already spoken to the homicide detectives? What if he knew I was a suspect? Could that have been why he left town so suddenly? And didn’t ask me to go with him?

  Not a great feeling.

  I wasn’t quite up to facing the Domestics Department yet, but since the cops were probably still in the main stockroom, and everybody knew to look for me in the break room—my all-time favorite hiding place—I figured I’d just hang out in here for a while. Maybe I’d give Marcie a call and see what was up with our next purse party, or schedule a mani and pedi for myself—that would improve my day.

  My cell phone buzzed.