Handbags and Homicide Read online

  I didn’t see any need to mention that.

  “So you saw nobody go in,” Detective Madison said. “See anyone come out?”

  “No.”

  “And when you found the body, you didn’t see anyone in the stockroom? Anywhere?”

  “I told you I didn’t see or hear anybody in the stockroom,” I said.

  “So it was just you? Back there alone? That whole big stockroom and no one else was around?”

  “Yeah, that’s what I’m…telling…you….”

  My voice trailed off because even I heard the guilt coming through.

  Both detectives looked ready to slap the cuffs on me. Ty looked suspicious and Craig appeared relieved that the killer had been found so quickly.

  We all stayed like that for a minute or so, me trying to look innocent—a lot harder to pull off than an of-course-you-can smile—and all the men glaring down at me.

  Then Detective Madison turned to Ty. “Let’s get the security tapes from the stockroom, have a look at them. You can point out who’s who on the tape.”

  I froze.

  There were security cameras in the stockroom? The police were going to look at the tape? Along with store personnel?

  And they’d see me lounging on the king-size Laura Ashley bed-in-a-bag sets when I was supposed to be working?

  Oh, crap.

  CHAPTER 3

  Would they fire me?

  The idea hit me as I swung across a couple of lanes of the 405 freeway, cutting off two other drivers on my way to work the next morning.

  I’d left Holt’s last night before my shift ended, a crime only marginally less severe than murder, in the eyes of the store’s management.

  And if that weren’t reason to let me go, seeing me lounging on the Laura Ashley bed-in-a-bag sets in the stockroom on the security tape would do it. The company was kind of nutty about expecting employees to actually work when they were on the clock.

  They’d fire me. Probably. I mean, I’d fire me, if I saw me lying around on bed sets instead of working.

  Or, maybe, I could beat them to the punch.

  Red taillights flashed in front of me. I hit the brakes and ran right up to the bumper of the pickup in front of me to make sure none of the cars in the other lanes could cut in front of me. Traffic slowed to a crawl.

  Maybe I’d sue them first. Post-traumatic stress, or something. Yeah, that might work. After all, I’d discovered a dead body in their store. I could sue them.

  I was feeling a little excited now.

  I could claim mental anguish or extreme emotional distress. Maybe even diminished capacity because just this morning I’d run a brand-new pair of Liz Claiborne panty hose while thinking about what had happened last night. Yeah, okay, I was really thinking about that rather good-looking Ty Cameron, but nobody needed to know that.

  I worked for Pike Warner, the most powerful law firm in Los Angeles, maybe even the whole West Coast. No one in their right mind would go up against the legal big guns at Pike Warner. Holt’s would cave. They’d be crazy not to.

  The more I thought about it, the better I liked the idea. In fact, I was pretty sure I was feeling post-traumatically stressed at this very moment.

  Or maybe it was just the traffic.

  I swooped in front of a Beemer and hit the Santa Monica Boulevard off-ramp, and by the time I crept along with traffic until I reached the Pike Warner employee parking structure, I’d decided to talk to Kirk Keegan about my situation.

  When Kirk had phoned my apartment four months ago and offered to recommend me for a job, I’d thought he was doing it to get into my pants. But, sadly, that proved untrue.

  Kirk was an associate, looking to make partner in record time. He was really good looking and very ambitious. We’d had drinks after work a few times and seen each other around the office occasionally, but nothing romantic ever developed between us. Darn it. Seems Kirk Keegan was just a nice guy.

  I parked and headed into the building along with all the other upwardly mobile, well-dressed employees. That’s one of the things I liked about working for Pike Warner. The clothes and incredible accessories. Armani, Dolce & Gabbana, Rolex. And absolutely everyone could tell the difference between a Prada and a Gucci handbag with only a casual glance.

  What I also liked was that I didn’t need an of-course-you-can smile at Pike Warner. In fact, smiling was frowned upon.

  The staid, reserved corporate environment at Pike Warner had been hard for me to get used to. Actually, it went against my grain. In the four months I’d worked there I’d only heard the F-word once—and I’m the one who said it.

  The law offices took up three floors of the building. Accounting, Human Resources, Document Retention—which was really the file room—and some of the consultants worked “down on fourteen,” as everyone referred to it.

  Never mind that we were in one of the most prestigious buildings in one of the biggest cities in the world; in the realm of Pike Warner, support staff were “down on fourteen” as if we were troglodytes, toiling away in the bowels of the earth.

  Associates were simply “on fifteen,” and the founding partners, Pike and Warner, two old geezers I wouldn’t recognize if I backed over them in the parking garage, were “up on sixteen.”

  At Pike Warner, everyone aspired to be “up on sixteen,” and by 9:02 a.m. on my first day of employment, I knew there wasn’t anything any employee wouldn’t do to scratch, claw, or sleep their way up to sixteen.

  When the elevator opened onto the fourteenth floor and I stepped out with the crowd, I spotted Kirk Keegan standing in the hallway, briefcase in hand and looking sharp in Armani.

  Perfect. Just the man I wanted to talk to today. Was this a good sign, or what?

  “Hey, Kirk, how are you—”

  “Good morning, Haley. Sorry, I’ve got to run,” he said and rushed into the elevator before the doors closed.

  Huh. Well, okay. This was still a good sign. At least I knew he was here today. I’d hook up with him later.

  The magnificent view of Los Angeles stretching to the ocean was visible through the big windows on my right as I walked down the corridor and into the accounting department.

  I don’t know how people who do not sit at a desk with a telephone all day, every day, ever manage their personal lives. How do they schedule their pedicures and make plans for the weekend? To say nothing of where they get their pens, pencils, and sticky notes.

  As always, a few kiss-asses were already in the accounting department, seated at their desks and actually working. They glanced up at me, then averted their gazes quickly as I walked past and into the accounts payable section.

  I stopped short. A uniformed security guard stood at a desk in the corner. My desk. Everyone in the room turned and looked at me.

  “Miss Randolph?”

  And there was a cardboard box sitting in the center of my desk, filled with—was that my personal belongings?

  “Miss Randolph?”

  The voice of Mrs. Drexler, the head of the accounting department, finally registered. She stood in the doorway of her private office, staring at me expectantly.

  “Could I see you for a moment, please?” she called.

  Everyone was watching me now and I got a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach. Like the one you get when you walk into a room carrying a Burberry handbag and realize the occasion called for a Fendi.

  I followed Mrs. Drexler into her office and she closed the door, not that it mattered since the walls were all glass, allowing everyone in the department to see what was going on.

  “Please, sit down, Miss Randolph,” she said, lowering herself into her desk chair.

  Mrs. Drexler was immaculately groomed. If Barbie had a stepmother, she would look just like Mrs. Drexler.

  She waited until I dropped into the chair in front of her desk, then laced her fingers and placed them just so on a file folder on her desktop.

  “Miss Randolph, over the weekend we conducted a routine audit of the
accounts payable unit,” she said.

  An audit? They did that?

  Oh. Okay. Then this couldn’t be something bad. I did my work perfectly, just as I’d been trained. I filled out my forms legibly in black ink, stapled at the required forty-five-degree angle. I’d never had one of my payment requests rejected by the girls in Cashiering.

  I was getting a promotion. Sure, that’s what it was. That’s why my desk had been emptied and a security guard was standing by because now I was too important to do those things myself, and certainly couldn’t move through the building without a proper escort.

  I’d get a raise too. My heart jumped. I could get that Louis Vuitton organizer—which I’d desperately need in my new, more responsible job. I could take care of that disconcerting miscalculation in my checkbook and I could quit my job at Holt’s.

  I nearly sprang out of the chair and threw my arms around Mrs. Drexler.

  But there was something about the way her right eyebrow crept up that kept me from doing that.

  Truthfully, I don’t think Mrs. Drexler ever really liked me. She never seemed to appreciate my sense of humor, my witty rejoinders, or the clever repartee I engaged in on the rare occasion when I could coax another employee in the department into actually speaking aloud.

  So I waited and Mrs. Drexler continued.

  “The auditors found some…irregularities…in your work.”

  The sick feeling in my stomach wound into a knot. “What sort of—”

  “An investigation is under way,” she said, speaking very slowly.

  “But I didn’t do anything wrong,” I said, hearing the desperation in my voice. “What did they find?”

  Mrs. Drexler patted the file on her desktop and I saw my name on the tab. Oh God. My personnel folder.

  The knot in my stomach hardened into a brick.

  “I can’t go into details until our investigation is complete,” Mrs. Drexler explained.

  “You have to tell me—”

  “Miss Randolph, it would be in your best interest not to say anything more,” she said, looking at me meaningfully.

  “But—”

  “As of this morning, you’re being put on administrative leave.”

  “You’re—you’re firing me?”

  “Administrative leave,” Mrs. Drexler corrected. “Just until our investigation is complete and a determination has been made.”

  “How long will that take?” I asked, hearing the desperation in my voice.

  “You’ll be notified of the outcome.”

  No. No, this couldn’t be happening. It just couldn’t. There had to be some sort of mistake.

  “Can I talk to your supervisor or the auditors, or somebody?” I pleaded. “I never did anything wrong. I followed all the guidelines and—”

  “Security will escort you out,” Mrs. Drexler said, sitting back and folding her hands.

  I looked up to see the security guard standing in the doorway. I gulped and turned back to Mrs. Drexler.

  “You’ll let me know when everything is straightened out?” I asked, sounding hopeful and awfully pathetic.

  She nodded solemnly. “Of course.”

  My knees wobbled as I rose from the chair. At the door, I turned back.

  “Is that paid administrative leave?” I asked.

  “No.”

  And so, my humiliation complete, I left her office.

  In a gross departure from Pike Warner procedure, absolutely everyone in the room looked up from their work and stared at me. Me and my security escort, that is, as I made the long, embarrassing walk of shame.

  I picked up the cardboard carton. Inside was my Universal Studios coffee mug, my bottle of hand lotion, a half pack of Juicy Fruit, and the potted ivy in the Wonder Woman planter my mom had sent me on my first day of work here.

  Everyone stared as I left the department. Everyone stared in the corridor and in the elevator. Everyone stared as I crossed the lobby, their gazes jumping from the security guard to the cardboard box, then to me.

  At the door, the guard stopped and I walked out alone. Everyone on the street stared. And in the parking garage.

  I threw the box in my backseat and sped away, humiliation and outrage boiling inside me.

  Irregularities in my work? An audit? An investigation? And I’d been placed on administrative leave?

  And it was unpaid leave.

  How was I going to live?

  I broke out in a cold sweat.

  How would I pay my rent? My utilities? My car payment? How would I manage Christmas and get that Louis Vuitton organizer? And how would I cover that astronomical error in my checking account?

  Well, I would just get another job. The idea hit me like a bolt as I shot up the on-ramp onto the 405.

  Sure. I had experience now. I’d worked for the biggest, most prestigious law firm in California, the West Coast—maybe even the world. I could get a job with another attorney in a snap. And I could demand a higher salary because now I had experience.

  Except—

  The knot in my stomach doubled.

  Except what sort of reference and job history would I give? If I said I’d worked for Pike Warner—which I’d have to do if I wanted another job in accounts payable—they would call for a reference. And what would they be told? That I was on administrative leave for irregularities—investigation pending.

  I’d never get a decent job. And that meant—

  The horror of my realization caused me to bolt upright in the car seat. I swerved right, onto the shoulder. My front fender scraped the retaining wall before I hit the brakes and slid to a stop.

  Cars whizzed past me on the left as I clutched the steering wheel, staring ahead at my doomed future.

  I was going to have to work at Holt’s—forever.

  CHAPTER 4

  Okay, I hadn’t been fired. That was the good news. I still had a job at Pike Warner, technically. Administrative leave wasn’t the same as being fired, was it? I mean, if they’d wanted to fire me, they would have, you know, fired me. Right?

  I shot across two lanes of traffic and headed down the off-ramp toward Pico Boulevard.

  Sure. Of course. They could have fired me but they didn’t. And that meant everything was still all right.

  Except that I didn’t have my Pike Warner income I’d grown accustomed to. I didn’t know how I’d pay my rent or utilities, get everyone a fabulous Christmas present, or buy myself that Louis Vuitton organizer—plus I now had a huge dent in my front fender from where I’d swerved off the freeway a few minutes ago.

  I followed traffic into the mall parking lot, swung into a space, and cut the engine. Could I sue Pike Warner for the damage to my car? I certainly wouldn’t have hit that retaining wall if it hadn’t been for them. Maybe I could make that a condition of accepting my job back. Wouldn’t that just set Mrs. Drexler back on her well-pumiced heels?

  I let that little fantasy play out in my head for a moment, and that made me think of Kirk Keegan. I fished my cell phone out of my purse and checked it again. Nothing. He still hadn’t called, and I was sure he’d heard the news by now. Gossip swept the three floors at Pike Warner quicker than a walk down the runway at Fashion Week. Last month when a secretary on sixteen showed up at work with a Birkin bag, we’d known it down on fourteen before the elevator doors closed behind her.

  Kirk was probably getting all the details, the actual facts, not just the gossip, I decided, as I left my car. He would call me any minute now with the latest. I headed for the mall.

  Yes, I know that hardly more than an hour ago I’d been humiliated by Mrs. Drexler and lost my good job, but that’s no reason not to go to the mall. Besides, where else was I going at this hour of the morning? All of my friends were at work, and while I could phone them with my devastating news, this sort of thing was better shared in person. Over drinks. Jell-O shooters and a beer chaser, at least. So first things first.

  I love the smell of the purse department in the morning. The scent of leathe
r and rich fabrics. The faint aroma of glass cleaner wafting from the display cases.

  I stood there gazing at the handbags artfully arranged in the case, drew in a deep breath, and let it out slowly. Yes, this was definitely where I needed to be right now.

  A salesclerk approached. She looked like a mannequin—but not in a good way.

  “Can I help you?” she asked from the other side of the display case.

  No. No, I didn’t need any help, and I certainly didn’t need a new handbag. I was just here to take in the sights, the sounds, the smells. To rejuvenate myself after my difficult morning.

  But, then, that’s no reason not to keep up with the latest fashions.

  “What’s new?” I asked, waving my hand over the display case.

  Mannequin gazed over my left shoulder with that empty, glazed look in her eye. Obviously, she wasn’t paying any attention to me. Couldn’t she see I was on the edge here? I could snap at any moment.

  “We just got in a shipment,” she mumbled.

  I froze. A new shipment? The latest bags? Just arrived?

  “Where?” I asked, rising on tiptoes, my gaze darting around the department.

  “Over there,” the clerk said, and wagged her fingers at the other side of the display case.

  I rushed to the other side and stopped in my tracks.

  The almost-impossible-to-find, so-hot-it-smoked, Notorious bag—in red leather!

  “Oh my God,” I gasped. “It’s gorgeous.”

  I gripped the display case with both hands to steady myself. I was feeling a little dizzy. Mannequin finally strolled over, took the bag from the case, and plopped it down. I scooped it up immediately, giving it the respect it deserved. My hands closed over the fine leather, and my heart raced faster.

  Another woman appeared at my side and I drew away slightly, protecting the purse in my arms, fearing a kidnap attempt. Then I realized she was another clerk.

  “Don’t you love that bag!” she declared.

  “I just saw this in Elle magazine,” I said, and eased my death grip a little. “I can’t believe you have one.”

  She glanced left and right, then leaned closer and whispered, “Drew Barrymore’s personal shopper was just here. She bought five of these for her closest friends. This is the last one.”