Fanny Packs and Foul Play (A Haley Randolph Mystery) Page 7

  For a couple of months now I’d been putting cash away in my underwear drawer to buy myself something fabulous—I mean, something more fabulous than the fabulous things I often bought myself. What I had in mind was a Louis Vuitton tote. It was an iconic bag offering a host of refinements—from the redesigned interior that featured fresh textiles and heritage details, to the lining in a selection of bright shades that lent a vivid pop of color to the timeless Monogram canvas.

  Yes, that was the description on their website.

  Yes, I’d memorized it.

  How could I not?

  I didn’t dare mention any of this to Marcie, though. She’d try to talk me out of buying it—right now, at least. She’d explain how Christmas was approaching, how I hadn’t had my job performance review at L.A. Affairs that would guarantee me a permanent position there, that the tote cost over three grand, and blah, blah, blah.

  Not that I didn’t appreciate Marcie’s concern for my finances.

  Anyway, if I didn’t find a handbag I loved—and soon—I was going to break down and buy the Louis Vuitton tote.

  When Marcie and I got to the handbag department at Macy’s we did our usual search, scoping out the purses in the display cases. We made one lap, then looked at each other and sighed. No words were necessary. This trip had been a total bust.

  “Don’t you have to get to work?” Marcie asked, glancing at her cell phone.

  As if today hadn’t been yucky enough, I still had to face several hours at Holt’s this afternoon.

  Oh, crap.

  * * *

  The generations-old tradition at Holt’s Department Store nixed displaying Christmas decorations until after Thanksgiving—one of the very few retail establishments that celebrated Christmas during the actual Christmas season. Nothing went up until Black Friday.

  I didn’t know if our customers appreciated the store’s we’re-Christmas-purists attitude but they sure as heck seemed to like the Thanksgiving Stuff-It sale, I realized as I squeezed through the crowded aisles heading for the employee breakroom to clock-in.

  The corporate marketing department had come up with the idea of giving customers a free shopping tote and granting them a twenty percent discount on everything they could stuff into it from our seasonal section. The shelves were filled with canned and boxed foods—gravy, vegetables and, of course, stuffing—and some decorator items.

  Thankfully, none of the employees working in that department had been required to dress up in turkey costumes.

  When I reached the breakroom, several employees were already lined up and ready to clock-in, while others who’d come in earlier in the day were seated at the tables eating. I stowed my handbag and got in line. Bella came in and went straight to the refrigerator.

  “Is it your lunch break?” I called.

  “I’m checking on my food,” she told me, as she grabbed her lunch sack from the refrigerator. “Nobody better try to take my string cheese again—or anything else. I’m keeping watch.”

  This seemed like overkill to me, but I didn’t say anything. I’d seen Bella angry a few times. No way was I commenting.

  I glanced at the schedule hanging by the time clock as I punched in my employee code and pressed my finger to the scanner, and saw that I was assigned to the housewares department. I’d worked there before, and while I didn’t love it, I knew that my assignment for the night could have been worse.

  Things can always be worse at Holt’s.

  When I left the breakroom I spotted Sandy straightening T-shirts on a display table in the women’s department. Not wanting to miss an opportunity to delay the actual start of my shift, I walked over.

  “I think Bella’s losing it,” I said, and glanced toward the breakroom.

  Sandy nodded. “She’s been checking on her lunch over and over, all day.”

  “It is really crappy to steal somebody’s food,” I said, and picked up a T-shirt so it would look like I was working. I wasn’t, of course.

  “What are you doing for Thanksgiving?” Sandy asked.

  Not this again.

  “My mom is having people over,” I said.

  “Moms always decide what everybody is doing for the holidays,” Sandy said, folding another shirt. “My mom said my boyfriend could have dinner with us, but he won’t.”

  “Why not?” I asked, and managed to keep the okay-that’s-crappy tone out of my voice.

  “He doesn’t want to meet my family,” Sandy explained.

  I hate that guy. Sandy deserves somebody so much better.

  I drew a breath, forcing myself not to get upset and said, “That must have hurt your feelings.”

  “Well, yeah, kind of,” Sandy said, then gave me a bright smile. “But he’s really nice to me most of the time.”

  Good grief.

  “There’s no roll-over plan in relationships,” I told her.

  Sandy looked lost.

  “Just because he’s nice to you most of the time,” I said, “it doesn’t make up for him being crappy to you at other times.”

  She still looked lost.

  I gave up.

  The aisles were crowded as I snaked my way toward the housewares department, which was also jammed with shoppers. Wading in and straightening stock—while avoiding eye contact with customers—seemed like more than I could manage at the moment. Besides, I had important personal business to attend to and, really, why shouldn’t I take care of it on company time?

  I cut down another aisle and slipped through the double doors into the stockroom. It was quiet, except for the dreadful music the store always played which was thankfully interrupted from time to time by an announcement over the public address system. I made my way between the giant shelving units, past the mannequin farm, the janitor’s closet, and the receiving dock, and bounded up the big concrete stairs to the second floor.

  This part of the stockroom wasn’t just quiet, it was creepy quiet. The shelving units reached the ceiling and were crammed with small, light-weight items. All of the store’s clothing hung from tall racks, each item still wrapped in plastic. There were rows and rows of lingerie and shapewear.

  I didn’t like coming up here—long story—but it was the perfect spot for me to take care of some personal business since almost nobody came up here at this time of the day.

  At the top of the staircase I turned left and found a secluded spot in the back corner between the shelving units. I pulled my cell phone out of my pocket and called Jack. He answered right away.

  “Have you talked to Patrick yet?” I asked.

  “This morning,” Jack said.

  He sounded tense. I heard nothing in the background so I had no idea where he was or what he was doing, but I was pretty sure he wasn’t hiding out in the stockroom during a crappy part-time job like I was.

  I saw no need to mention it.

  “He said nothing unusual had been going on in the past several weeks,” Jack said. “No unusual phone calls, no strangers showing up at the house or the office, no threats. No problems with anything. Nothing out of the ordinary.”

  “Did you ask him about Erika?” I asked.

  “He said it was over between them.”

  “Did you believe him?”

  Jack was quiet for a few seconds then said, “Yes.”

  I figured Jack and I were wondering the same thing—would Patrick admit to trying to rekindle a relationship with Erika? Doubtful, when it could be construed as a motive for murder.

  “I think maybe Veronica was being blackmailed,” I said.

  The notion had been on my mind since Brandie had let slip the dirty little family secret about Veronica’s mother. She’d come right out and said that everybody had agreed to keep it quiet, fearing Patrick and his old-money family might be embarrassed enough to bring a halt to their ride on the Pammy Candy gravy train. If that happened, Veronica had more to lose than anyone, making her an ideal blackmail victim.

  “Talk to me, Haley,” Jack said.

  His voice d
ropped a little—not quite to Barry White frequency, but close.

  It was so hot.

  “Andrea told me Veronica had been more stressed lately, even with everything that was going on with renovating the house, her family coming out, the candy business, the holidays,” I said, then told him about Veronica’s mom.

  Everyone I’d talk to about Veronica and Patrick claimed that they were hopelessly, deeply in love. Yet I couldn’t help but wonder if Veronica questioned just how far Patrick’s love would stretch once the hugely embarrassing family secret was made public. The hoity-toity friends of the Spencer-Taft family wouldn’t likely give it an oh-well and move on.

  “It’s possible somebody found out her mom is in prison and was blackmailing her,” I said.

  “I’m on it,” Jack told me and ended the call.

  I slid my cell phone into my pocket—I know it’s not possible but it actually felt warmer after talking to Jack—and headed for the stairs, then stopped when I heard footsteps. I peeked around the end of the shelving unit and spotted someone walking toward the other end of the stockroom.

  It was one of the newly hired sales clerks, I realized, and it took me a few seconds to remember that her name was Gerri.

  What the heck was she doing up here? All the seasonal employees shadowed the clerks who ran the registers, bagging merchandise to speed up the check-out lines. I couldn’t think of a reason for her to be up here—one that had something to do with actual work.

  Then I remembered how she’d jumped up to do Rita’s bidding when the greeting cards had gotten trashed. Maybe Gerri really was a kiss-ass trying to get more hours or stay on past Christmas, as Sandy had suggested. Both were real possibilities.

  Still, something about it bothered me and I wondered why, exactly, she’d come up here.

  Immediately, I shifted into stealth-mode.

  I tiptoed down the shelving unit, then cut across the aisles and dropped to my knees watching as Gerri made her way to the lingerie section. She flipped through the panties hanging on the rack, then looked back over her shoulder, pulled two pairs off of their hangers, and stuffed them into her pocket.

  Gerri hurried back through the stockroom and skipped down the staircase. I waited until her footsteps faded, then followed her down. As I went through the stockroom doors, I spotted her going into the breakroom. I figured her shift had ended and she was clocking-out so I headed for the store entrance.

  I walked slowly—not so slow as to entice customers to ask for help, of course—and reached the door in time to see Gerri go outside. I watched as she crossed the parking lot, got into a white Chevy and drove off.

  Oh my God. She stole those panties.

  Chapter 9

  “Are you ready to party?” Mindy exclaimed when I walked into L.A. Affairs.

  I was determined to stay in don’t-be-a-crab-ass mode, even though it was Monday morning.

  This wasn’t helping.

  “You bet,” I forced myself to say, and kept walking.

  Of course, trying to stay upbeat and positive would have been a heck of a lot easier if I didn’t have so many major problems on my mind, one of which was what I’d witnessed at Holt’s yesterday.

  Gerri had stolen merchandise from the store. Granted, it was only two pairs of panties and the company was worth billions, but stealing was stealing. Should I rat her out to the store manager? Or should I let it go?

  I wasn’t great at letting things go.

  Something else troublesome had happened, too. When my shift ended I’d headed home, and while stopped at the traffic light on the corner I’d spotted Gerri’s car in the Wal-Mart parking lot. I only noticed it because it was parked close to the street near a couple of RVs.

  Why was she shopping at Wal-Mart when she had an employee discount at Holt’s? Of course, Wal-Mart carried lots of things that Holt’s didn’t so maybe it was no big deal. But I couldn’t help wondering if Gerri was inside shoplifting bras to go with the panties she’d taken from Holt’s.

  As I walked passed the cube farm and turned down the hallway toward my office, I decided it was too much to contemplate for so early on a Monday morning. I needed coffee to give my day a boost.

  I slipped into my office to drop off my handbag and—oh my God. A man was sitting in front of my desk and—oh my God, it was Liam.

  He shot to his feet.

  Oh wow. He looked great. Today he had on a charcoal gray suit, and a shirt and tie in pale shades of blue. And those green eyes of his. Oh my God.

  “What do you call two hundred lawyers at the bottom of the San Francisco Bay?” Liam asked. “A good start.”

  He smiled.

  I smiled—and I giggled. I couldn’t help it.

  “I hope you don’t mind me dropping by,” Liam said.

  I resisted the urge to keep smiling and giggling, and pulled myself together—not easy with no coffee yet today.

  “I wanted to let you know the lawsuit is settled,” he said. “I thought you might be worried.”

  “I wasn’t worried,” I said.

  “Oh. Well, good. I wouldn’t want you to worry,” he said.

  “That’s why you came here?” I asked. “That’s kind of lame.”

  “I know,” he said, then grinned. “But it was the best excuse I could come up with on a Monday morning.”

  “Monday’s are tough,” I agreed.

  We looked at each other for a few minutes, then he walked past me to the door. Wow, he smelled great.

  “I’ll find a better excuse for tomorrow,” he told me, then left.

  I stood frozen in place for a few seconds, then leaned out my office door. Liam stood at the end of the hallway, waiting, looking my way.

  What nerve. He thought I would come out of my office to catch a last glimpse of him.

  I had—but that’s not the point.

  Liam smiled—it was kind of a cocky smile, but I guess I deserved it—then waved and walked away.

  Oh my God. Now I desperately needed a giant infusion of sugar, chocolate, and caffeine. I headed for the breakroom.

  * * *

  I’d barely calmed down from seeing Liam—the coffee and two chocolate doughnuts helped—when my cell phone rang. I saw Andrea’s name on the caller ID screen and answered right away.

  “Is everything okay?” I asked, as I rose from my desk chair and walked to the window.

  “Well, yes, it’s just that …” Andrea paused, then said, “Something been bothering me and I don’t know what to do about it.”

  I waited.

  I’m not good at waiting.

  “Earlier last week I overheard Veronica and Patrick,” Andrea said. “They were arguing.”

  Okay, that surprised me.

  Andrea must have read my mind because she said, “I know, it was totally unlike them. And it could have been nothing, but it stuck in my head.”

  “What were they arguing about?” I asked.

  “I couldn’t hear what they were saying, just their raised voices,” Andrea said, then paused for a few seconds. “You don’t think it had anything to do with Veronica’s death, do you?”

  Several possibilities shot through my head. Maybe Veronica had told Patrick she planned to return home with her relatives. Or maybe Patrick had confessed that he and Erika were getting back together. There was also the possibility that it had something to do with the big Thanksgiving Day announcement.

  “I mean, no way would Patrick hurt her—kill her—and he wasn’t even there that day,” Andrea said. “Should I tell the police? I guess I should, but I don’t want to get Patrick in trouble.”

  I didn’t see this as a big clue that would break the case wide open, more like something that might distract the homicide detectives and lead them down a dead end. But I understood how Andrea felt.

  “Hold off for a few days,” I said. “See what the detectives turn up and if they don’t find a suspect, you should think about telling them.”

  She sighed. “That’s a good idea. Thanks.”r />
  “How are the house guests?” I asked.

  “Still sniping at each other,” Andrea said, and sounded a little weary.

  Family—even someone else’s—can do that to you.

  “I’ll try to get out there this afternoon,” I said.

  “Great,” she replied, and we ended the call.

  I stood staring out the window for a few minutes thinking about what she’d said about the two supposed love birds fighting, and decided I needed to try and get some inside info on the investigation. I scrolled through my cell phone address book and called Detective Shuman, one of LAPD’s finest.

  I’d known Shuman for a while and we’d had some ups and downs—more ups, luckily. He was a little older than me, handsome in a guy-next-door kind of way. There was something between us, kind of romantic, but not really—it was weird.

  His voicemail picked up. I left what I thought was an oh-so-clever message about needing info on Veronica’s murder investigation that I hoped would inspire him to call me back with some intel. Next I called Jack to see if he’d learned anything new. His voicemail picked up also so I left a message with him.

  I stood by the window staring at my phone. It didn’t ring. Neither hot guy called me back. That meant there was nothing else I could do at the moment—except actual work.

  I hate it when that happens.

  * * *

  The office phone on my desk rang. I glanced at my wristwatch and saw that several hours had past.

  Wow, time went by fast when you were actually working.

  “Haley? Haley?” Mindy asked when I answered. “Hello? Can I speak to Haley?”

  “I’m Haley,” I said.

  “Oh, jiminy, so you are!” Mindy giggled. “You have a client. Oh, of course you have a client—you have lots of clients!”

  She laughed at her own joke then wound down and said, “Anyway, you have a client here. Here in the office, that is.”

  Liam flew into my head. Had he come back?

  My heart started to beat a little faster.