Accessory to Murder (23 page)

“Terrific,” Josie said. “Another motive for murder.”

“He might as well take out a billboard on Highway Forty that says, ‘I killed Halley.'”

“Except he didn't,” Josie said.

“I know he didn't,” Alyce said. “But he's so arrogant, he's going to hang himself. Nothing bad has ever happened to Jake. He can't understand why his luck has turned. He's always had everything he wanted. He thought he could make the stock market roll over like a pet dog. Instead, it bit him.”

“So Jake turned to Halley, as the next-best way to recoup the lost money,” Josie said.

“He did,” Alyce said. “And he ruined our lives. His business with Halley wasn't law firm business, just like he said. He wasn't having an affair with her. He couldn't—no, he wouldn't—tell me. You know why? Because he was afraid. He knew I wouldn't let him touch Justin's money.

“Jake's a gambler, Josie. A plunger. He lost big in the market, so he bet again—on Halley. Like any gambler, he was sure he'd get it back when Halley's business took off. Then she died. But he'd hedged his bet with that keyman policy. He was waiting for it to double his investment. Then he'd tell me and be the big hero.”

“Oh, Alyce.”

“There's more. Something I haven't had a chance to tell you yet.”

Something you didn't want to tell even your best friend, Josie thought.

“There's a problem at the law firm,” Alyce said. “No, it's a mess. A big, big mess. Even if Jake is cleared of Halley's murder, he could lose his partnership. We're looking at years of lawsuits, maybe bankruptcy.”

“Good God, Alyce, what happened?”

“Jake was working on a huge takeover of a company. The firm's biggest client. It was all very secret. Somehow, a message was sent from Jake's PC in his office to the CEO of the takeover target, alerting him that someone was trying to take over his company.”

“And that's bad because?” Josie asked.

“The whole deal blew up.”

“Oh,” Josie said.

“Jake's not only in trouble with his firm, but the client can turn him in to the ethics board for violating confidentiality. The lawsuits could cost the firm millions. Jake's a partner, a member of the firm, so that makes them all liable. The firm would then turn around and sue Jake. And when lawyers start suing each other—”

“They never stop,” Josie said. “When did the firm uncover this?”

“They had their suspicions before Halley was killed. That's another reason they were so anxious to hustle him out of his office—so they could go through his files and computer records.”

“Why would Jake do that?” Josie said.

“For money,” Alyce said. “The firm claims the tipped-off CEO was going to give him major money for the information.”

“Do they have any proof?” Josie said. “Do they have anything besides that one e-mail?”

“No,” Alyce said. “But since the firm found out about the e-mail, they can say he didn't get any money because the CEO didn't want to be caught paying off an informant.”

“Great,” Josie said. “So having no money is no proof of Jake's innocence.”

“Right,” Alice said. “The police will say Jake murdered Halley because he heard the rumors that the firm was on to him. Jake was doubly desperate for money: He'd cleaned out our son's account and his takeover tipoff fell through.”

“What a mess,” Josie said, then wished she'd kept her mouth shut.

“He didn't do it, Josie. The only thing he's guilty of is stupidity. But it's enough to ruin us all.”

“What are you going to do?” Josie said.

“What can I do? I'll stay with him until after Halley's trial. We have to get through that first. Then I don't know.”

She started crying. Justin began wailing along with her in the backseat, and Alyce could not reach out to comfort him.

“Take me home,” Alyce said. “I'm calmer now.”

By the time they reached Alyce's house, Justin's face was red with angry weeping. Josie helped carry his car seat into the garage. In the confusion, Alyce didn't say good-bye. She hugged her child to her, and hurried in the house.

Josie drove around aimlessly, sick at the heartache she'd caused. Her clumsy questions had killed a man. Now she'd ruined Alyce's marriage.

She'd driven her own mother into debt, thanks to anonymous complaints to the city inspector. Days of her own time were wasted replacing the stolen license plate and canceling the mountain of packages and magazines she didn't order.

What had she learned that could help Alyce and Jake?

Not a damned thing.

Josie hadn't a clue who killed Halley.

She was useless. She was worse than useless. All she'd found were more reasons for Jake to murder Halley.

Josie felt like she was shopping in the seventh circle of hell.

The Down & Dirty Discount store was in a gray metal building as big as an airplane hangar. Bare lightbulbs were strung overhead, but the huge space absorbed the light. The store was dim as a cave.

Bump. Thump. Bump.

Josie's crippled cart lurched along the concrete floor, then came to a complete stop in some sticky substance. Was that glue on the floor? She struggled to free her cart. The poor metal beast was trapped like a mastodon in the La Brea tar pits.

Finally, she cleared the cart wheels, then turned into an aisle lined with shower doors. They seemed to come complete with soap scum.

Bump. Thump. Bump.

The stock was piled on unpainted wood shelves that reached to the ceiling—and threatened to topple onto the shoppers. Tired men and worn women wrestled cut-rate bathroom vanities and cheap ceiling fans into their carts. Josie rolled past them, looking for the garden-furniture section.

Bump. Thump. Bump.

She was assaulted by awful odors. The rolled rugs smelled musty. The car parts were repulsively oily. The plants in the garden center reeked of manure. But the frozen fish fingers in the food section were strong enough to overpower everything. They smelled like cod corpses.

Josie thought she couldn't feel any worse after she left Alyce's house yesterday. She was wrong. Mystery-shopping Down & Dirty stores made her even more miserable. Sunday revealed her total failure as a friend. Shopping these stores showed her professional futility. Monday in a D&D was a low point in her career.

Year after year, Josie mystery-shopped the Down & Dirty stores. She always turned in negative reports. “Poor” was the highest grade she'd ever given a D&D store. That was one grade up from the bottom rung of “unacceptable.” Yet the corporation kept asking Suttin Services to mystery-shop the D&D stores, and they always requested Josie.

Did the managers ever read her reports? she wondered. Or were they filed in some warehouse?

She looked at the questions on her sheet: Was the parking lot clean and pleasant? Never. Plastic bags and old napkins always roosted in the dying bushes in front of the store. The lots glittered with broken glass. Today, Josie finally learned how some of that glass wound up on the potholed blacktop. Two winos were fighting over a bottle of muscatel from D&D. During the tussle, the disputed bottle went flying and smashed to the ground. She left the winos in each other's arms, weeping over their loss.

Josie wanted to cry with them. It would be only more depressing inside. Now, as she bumped along the gray aisles with her cart, she knew that was the only thing she'd been right about today.

Most people who shopped at Down & Dirty couldn't afford to buy anywhere else. A few were bargain hunters who deluded themselves into believing that the cheapest was the best. D&D boasted it carried “the best brand names at the lowest prices.”

It didn't mention that those brand names weren't the same quality as the ones in higher-priced department stores. The venerable brands sold out their customers and made “special” (i.e., lower-quality) lines just for D&D.

D&D was where you bought bicycles with instructions in Chinese, pressed-sawdust furniture that wobbled when you assembled it, and pop-up tents guaranteed to collapse in the first heavy rain.

Worse was the knowledge that this cheap junk was made by slaves in third-world countries. D&D shoppers never saw those people. But they had to notice the browbeaten employees scurrying through the store like frightened rabbits.

Josie dreaded asking the staff the obligatory questions on her mystery-shopping sheet. Many barely spoke English. She was sure if she yelled “green card,” she could clear out the store.

Oh, well. The sooner she went to work, the sooner she was out of here. Her assignment was to ask a clerk to assist her in the garden-furniture section.

Josie stopped a stick-thin woman with french-fried hair. She was wearing a yellow D&D smock. “Excuse me,” Josie said. “Where is the garden furniture?”

“Two aisles over, in G. Middle of the row,” the clerk said. The name tag around her neck was turned inward. A wise decision. Aisle G was light fixtures. Josie picked up the night-lights she was supposed to buy while she was there. She found another clerk in the “home additions” section. He was adding on a substantial beer gut and a wide back porch.

“Garden furniture? Aisle S, little lady,” he said cheerfully. “On the left.” A
D&D EMPLOYEE OF THE MONTH
sticker hid his name.

Josie trundled down to Aisle S, which seemed halfway to Iowa. It was packed with paint supplies.

She found another clerk in Aisle Q, stocking paper towels. She was a young dark-skinned woman with cropped hair. Her name tag said
DANITA
.

“Where's the garden furniture, please?” Josie said.

“Aisle R,” Danita said cheerfully, and went back to piling packages.

“Don't leave me,” Josie said. “Please. I've been misdirected all over the store.”

“That bad, huh? I'll take you there,” Danita said.

She escorted Josie to the proper section. Josie felt like she'd been wandering in the D&D wilderness for days.

“Thank you. Thank you so much,” Josie said to her rescuer.

“No problemo,” Danita said, sounding remarkably like Amelia. How did she stay so cheerful in this hellish place? Thank goodness for Danita. Now Josie could give someone at D&D a positive report. She felt a little better.

She picked up four bile green lawn-chair pads, as instructed, and headed for the checkout line. Only two clerks were at the cash registers, and the lines were backed up around the store. Josie's cell phone played her favorite U2 tune. Normally, Josie didn't answer phones in checkout lines, but normal rules didn't apply at D&D.

She looked at the number. It was Harry, her horrible boss. Of course. If you were in hell, the devil would find you.

“Josie,” he said. “Where are you?”

“Shopping at a D&D,” she said.

“Good,” Harry said. He'd know she was miserable. “Can you mystery-shop at Plaza Venetia tomorrow?”

Plaza Venetia would seem celestial after a day in the dark underbelly of discount stores. Josie tried not to sound too eager. Harry might take away the assignment.

“I guess so,” she said. “What's the store?”

“Another Pretty Things boutique,” Harry said. “God knows why, but the company personally requested you.”

Because I'm good, she wanted to scream. Because I'm honest. Because I help weed out the bad staff, like your niece. But she didn't say it. Harry knew that already.

“Does that mean I still have to do the Chunk-A-Chickens?”

“You bet,” Harry said. “Just be glad you've got work.”

Josie hung up, then heard her phone again. It was her mother.

“Josie?” Jane said. “Did you order twenty-four CDs?”

“No, Mom.”

“How about six reams of computer paper from Office Depot?”

“No, Mom.”

“A new down comforter?”

“Are we still getting more deliveries, Mom?” Josie couldn't keep the despair out of her voice.

“Bunches of them, Josie. All new companies. Didn't you cancel those credit cards?”

“Yes, Mom. These must have been ordered before the cancellations.”

“I refused everything, but I couldn't do anything about the twenty-five magazines.”

“Twenty-five!” Josie yelped, and the people trapped in line with her stared. “I'm sorry,” Josie said to them.

“You don't have to apologize,” Jane said. “I know it wasn't your fault. Josie, can I ask you a personal question? You didn't order
American Baby
on purpose, did you?”

“Ohmigod, no,” Josie said. “Mom, I don't have time to read the magazine, much less take care of a baby. I'll be home as soon as I can. Keep saying no until I get there.”

Half an hour later, Josie stepped out of the dank, cavelike Down & Dirty store into a warm, sunshiny day. It had to be at least fifty degrees, a gift in cold December. Josie was determined not to waste it, no matter how bad things were.

Josie found Jane on the front porch, saying no to a shipment of Omaha Steaks. Her mother looked small and determined. Her jaw jutted stubbornly, and her arms were crossed in front of her.

“OK, lady,” the deliveryman said, “but this is your address, right?”

“We didn't order them,” Josie said, hurrying up to the porch. “My credit card was hijacked.”

“Oh, sorry,” the deliveryman said, and began loading the boxes back on the handcart.

Josie eyed the rejected boxes suspiciously. She'd seen enough Omaha Steaks on Harry's desk. Was this proof her boss was behind the package pileup? What could she do about it?

“Oh, Josie, I'm so glad you're home,” Jane said.

Josie picked up her mother's cigarette, which was burning a scorch mark into the porch rail, and handed it to her. Jane took a puff, blew out a stream of smoke, and said, “I had to turn away more. Lots more, including a two-pound box of chocolates and a home exercise machine.”

She was wringing her hands, a sign she was frantic with worry.

“Thanks, Mom,” Josie said. “I'm so sorry you had to put up with this. GBH.”

She gave her mother a hug, and felt the tense muscles in her neck. “Mom, this has you tied in knots,” Josie said, rubbing her mother's neck.

“No, Josie, that's not it. I can deal with delivery drivers. It feels good to return orders when they're not mine. The handyman called. It's going to cost another thousand dollars to paint the garage. Where am I going to get that kind of money?”

“Raise my rent,” Josie said. “I'm due for an increase.”

“I will not,” Jane said. “I'm not taking money away from my own granddaughter. It will come from somewhere. I'll have to think about it. Do you want lunch?”

“Not hungry,” Josie said. “I want to start canceling magazines before I have to pick up Amelia at school.”

Josie canceled fifteen magazines, including
XXL,
“the voice of the Hip-Hop Generation,”
Sports Illustrated,
and
Cook's Illustrated,
before she had to stop. She pulled her old brown sweater out of the back of her closet. She loved that sweater. She used to wear it when she dated Amelia's father. Feeling its soft warmth brought back good memories. She wondered if Amelia would notice it.

“Eew, Mom,” her daughter said as she dropped onto the car seat. “Do you have to wear that old thing? It's gross. What if one of my friends sees it?”

“What?” Josie said.

“That sweater. It's all stretched out. And it's old.” Amelia wrinkled her freckled nose. At her age, “old” was the ultimate insult.

“It's not old,” Josie said. “It's comfortable.”

“How old is it?”

“Ten years old,” Josie said.

“I'm nine. It's older than me.”

So much for memories, Josie thought. It's time to make some new ones.

“It's a nice day. Let's go to the Turtle Playground.” Josie held her breath. Did Amelia consider herself too grown-up for the playground?

“Cool,” Amelia said.

Josie tried not to show her relief. The Turtle Playground was a wonderfully loony collection of concrete sculptures on the south side of Forest Park. There were three giant turtles and four small ones, plus a curling snake that seemed to be biting the Highway 40 overpass. The biggest turtles were forty feet long. The smallest were seven feet long. There were also seven eggs.

Josie reached in her trunk for the two bottles of water and the chocolate chip cookies she'd packed. She swapped the brown sweater for the navy Windbreaker she kept in her mystery-shopper disguise kit to change her appearance.

“That's better,” Amelia said. Her sigh of relief was audible. She was saved from social embarrassment.

Josie and Amelia munched cookies and watched three little girls slide down the biggest turtle's back.

“The big turtles are named Richard, Sally, and Tom,” Josie said. “Those are the children of Sunny Glassberg, the woman who donated the playground. The little turtles are named for her grandchildren, Antonio, David, Adam, and Emily.”

“No ‘Amelia,'” her daughter said. “I wish I had a turtle named after me.”

“Which one?” Josie said.

“A big one,” Amelia said.

Josie splashed her water on the turtle's huge front paw.

“I hereby rechristen you Amelia,” Josie said to the turtle. “Henceforth, you shall be known by that name.”

“You're nutso-crazy,” Amelia said. But she looked pleased.

A wedding party ran through the playground, laughing and posing on the smaller turtles.