All Sales Fatal (14 page)

“If I can.”

“Fair enough.” He bent and pressed a swift kiss on my lips. Before I could react, he was striding away.

I got into the Miata, thinking hard, and started for home. Jay Callahan had kissed me. True, it wasn’t much of a kiss, and I didn’t know why he’d done it, but he’d kissed me. It’d been… I couldn’t remember how many months it’d been since a man kissed me. Bad sign. I fought the temptation to dwell on the kiss and what it might or might not mean. I had more important things to ponder.

Soon after he took over the Lola’s stand in the food court, I’d made Jay as a law-enforcement agent of some kind, or maybe an investigative reporter. He knew too much about police procedure, and he’d run to help me when a pair of clever murderers started shooting at me near the fountain some weeks back. He’d brandished a gun and yelled, “Stop! Police!” He’d told me later that he only said that to scare the shooters, but I hadn’t bought it.

I drummed my fingers on the steering wheel. His interest in weapons made me wonder if he might be an Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms—ATF—agent. Could someone be running guns and using Fernglen as—what? A delivery point? Or maybe he was FBI working a terrorist sting of some kind and had intelligence about a weapons cache the terrorists were planning to use. A shiver skittered up my back. I’d grown complacent since giving up my uniform and badge, my gun and handcuffs. Being a mall cop was dulling my instincts. Where I used to patrol in a state of high alert, ready for small arms fire or a suicide bomber, now I chatted my way around Fernglen, keeping half an eye out for
vandals, pickpockets, or shoplifters. Was it possible that a weapons smuggling ring was operating at Fernglen and I hadn’t caught so much as a whiff of it?

Grinding my teeth as I pulled up in front of my house, I locked the car and went in, almost tripping over Fubar, who pounced at my feet and clawed at my laces. With a laugh, I scooped him up and carried him into the bedroom. When I loosed him on the bed, he promptly leaped down and headed back to the kitchen. Moments later the
whisk
of his cat door told me he preferred prowling to sleeping. Maybe I’d do some prowling tomorrow, I thought sleepily, sliding under the covers, and see what kind of prey I could scare up at the mall.

Twelve

Monday was technically
my second day off, but I arrived at Fernglen only slightly later than usual despite my midnight visit to the mall. Today was the first meeting of the self-defense class and I needed to set up for it. Harold Wasserman was already in the office, holding a mug of what smelled like peppermint tea.

“Casual-dress day?” he greeted me, eyeing my slim-fitting red sweatpants and loose tee shirt.

“I’m teaching a self-defense class.”

“I saw the flyer. Not a bad idea. Lobbying to be the head cheese, huh?” He grinned in a friendly way when he said it and I smiled back, relieved he wasn’t as against the idea of my becoming the director of security as Vic Dallabetta was.

“Are you applying for the job?”

“Not me.” He waggled his eyebrows. “I don’t need the headaches. This job suits me just fine—gets me out of the house, puts a little change in my pocket, and doesn’t push my blood pressure into the stratosphere. I had enough of
that in my first career.” He gulped some tea. “I quit smoking again, and the mint in this”—he lifted the mug—“is supposed to help with nicotine cravings.”

“Really?” Harold had quit smoking at least ten times since I’d worked here and never made it more than sixty days or so. I knew because we ran a pool each time to guess how long he’d hold out. I hoped he would succeed this time. “Good luck. Anything going on?” I nodded at the monitors.

“Quiet as the grave.” He winced. “Speaking of which, we got an email from the mall manager’s office saying Captain Woskowicz’s memorial service is tomorrow morning at nine. Mr. Quigley encourages ‘as many employees as possible’ to attend.”

I nodded. I would certainly go. I hadn’t much liked Captain Woskowicz, but I didn’t think that mattered. Paying my respects by attending the service was the right thing to do. Since the service was occurring before the stores opened, I could probably get by with keeping only one guard on duty during that time, so most of the security staff could pay their respects if they wanted to.

“I’ll hold the fort,” Harold volunteered, as if reading my mind. “I’m getting to the age where I go to too damn many funerals as it is.”

Segwaying to the Bean Bonanza, I bought coffee and then glided to the open area fronting the food court where Quigley had said I could hold the self-defense class. The maintenance team had already set out a series of mats the mall used when visiting gymnastics groups or cheerleaders performed for customers. I took off my shoes and poked at one of the mats with a toe. Soft enough for our purposes. It wasn’t like we were going to be practicing judo throws. At this hour, the area was virtually deserted, with only a mall walker or two striding past, caught up in conversation with a buddy or deafened by earbuds delivering up-tempo music.
A lone janitor swished a mop at the far end of the food court, and I waved at her.

I glanced at my watch just as Grandpa Atherton and Joel Rooney came around the corner. Even though Joel was younger by almost sixty years, Grandpa looked much fitter and tougher in his black tracksuit, with his shoulders thrown back and eyes automatically noting all the details of his environment. His white hair and wrinkles proclaimed his age, but his bearing told would-be robbers that they might be taking on more than they could handle if they picked on him. Joel, in baggy knee-length shorts, had his hands jammed in the kangaroo pocket of his gray hoodie. With his brown hair tousled, he looked half asleep and would have been an easy target for even a third-rate mugger. Grandpa gave me a vigorous hug, and Joel half lifted a hand in a little wave.

“Nothing like hand-to-hand combat to start the day off on the right foot,” Grandpa said. “It’s almost as good as sex.” Putting a hand to his slim waist, he stretched to the side. Joel’s brows had climbed toward his bangs at the word “combat” (or maybe at the idea of an octogenarian starting the day with a quickie), but after a moment’s hesitation, he did the same. A couple of women straggled up next, and within five minutes we had a ragtag collection of students dressed in everything from coordinated velour lounging wear (Starla from Starla’s Styles) to shorts or sweatpants (most of the women), to jeans and high-heeled pumps (Nina Wertmuller, Captain Woskowicz’s first wife). I offered my condolences, even though two wives had succeeded her.

When she saw my gaze light on her impractical shoes, Nina said, “It’s not like a rapist is going to wait until I’m wearing workout gear to attack, you know. I dress like this all the time, so I figured it’d be smart to practice in what I’ll be wearing if I’m ever attacked.”

She had a fair point, but I made her take off the stilettos, not wanting her to break an ankle or gouge holes into the mats. The two young women from Rock Star Accessories trotted up a couple minutes late, balancing Starbucks cups, which they set down at the mat’s edge; they made the group an even ten. Grandpa and Joel were the only men. When everyone had removed their shoes and found a spot on the mats, I introduced myself and started with a question. “What is always your best self-defense option, when feasible?”

No one spoke at first, but then I heard a few half-hearted answers: “Kick him in the balls” and “Go for the eyes.”

“Nope.” I waited until I had everyone’s attention. “Run away. If you can get away from an attacker, do so. Fighting is the last resort. Your attackers are almost always going to be men, and they’re probably going to be bigger and stronger than you are. And they might be armed. Not good odds. So, if you have a chance to run, take it. It is not wimpy or cowardly to run. It’s smart.”

Some of the women shifted uneasily, their eyes wide, and Grandpa nodded decisively. Joel looked unconvinced. I talked for another fifteen minutes about how self-defense starts before an attacker ever appears, with simple precautions like not walking in dangerous neighborhoods alone or after dark, checking the backseat of a car before getting into it, and keeping home and car doors locked. A few mall walkers glanced at our group curiously as they passed, but continued with their laps.

“Well, duh,” Nina Wertmuller said when I paused. “I mean, every woman with a scrap of survival instinct does those things.”

The self-conscious and embarrassed expressions several of the students exchanged seemed to argue against that, as did the stats about women as victims of violence, but I didn’t dispute her. I raised my brows, inviting her to go on.

“When are you going to show us something
real
? Like how to put down an attacker.” She folded her arms under her plump breasts. Her abrasive attitude was wearing, and I caught myself thinking I couldn’t totally blame Captain Woskowicz for preferring Paula.

“Right now,” I said. “Joel, will you help me?”

Apprehension flitted across his features, but he came forward gamely to stand in front of me. “Grab my wrist,” I said.

With a sheepish smile, he reached out and encircled my wrist loosely with his big hand. With a simple roll of my wrist, I broke free. “No, grab it like you mean it.”

This time, he braced himself and clamped down on my wrist.

“Better,” I said as I launched a side kick at his knee, grasped my captive hand with my free hand and wrenched it free, and sent that elbow thudding into his solar plexus. Despite my only putting about 50 percent power into the moves, he staggered back and clutched at his abdomen. “Now what do I do?” I asked the class.

“Run,” they chorused.

“Exactly.” I smiled with satisfaction. “You okay, Joel?”

“Sure,” he grunted. “You surprised me, that’s all.”

“You’re a good sport.” The women clapped for him, and he stood straighter, a pleased smile creasing his face. “Now, if I, with a bum knee, can do that to an attacker who’s several inches taller and fifty pounds heavier than I am”—it was probably more like eighty pounds, but I didn’t want to make Joel feel bad—“you can do it to almost anyone you come up against. Pair up.”

With Grandpa coaching Joel, plus Nina and her partner, and me working with the other women, we spent half an hour practicing side kicks, throwing elbows into knees or
abdomens, and breaking wrist holds. Everyone was sweating and panting slightly when we finished.

“This was great!” the Rock Star manager announced enthusiastically when we quit for the day. “Again on Thursday, right?”

“You bet. We’ll learn palm-heel strikes.”

With a smattering of applause that made me feel surprisingly good, the women scattered, leaving me alone with Grandpa and Joel. “You’ve got potential, Rooney,” Grandpa told Joel. “Good balance.”

Joel puffed up with pleasure and said, “I’d be happy to be a tenth as good as you are, sir.”

They beamed at each other, a mini mutual admiration society, and I rolled my eyes in pretend exasperation.

Despite the fact
that I could have gone home after the class since it was my day off, I returned to the office. It had struck me when I awoke that if Captain Woskowicz had deliberately disabled the cameras to the Pete’s Sporting Goods wing, he did it because something nefarious or underhanded was going on there. If I reviewed earlier images of that wing, and looked for Captain W, maybe I’d spot a pattern or see something else that might provide a clue.

The task was mind-numbing. We stored camera data back two weeks, and even though I could fast-forward through a lot of it, I had to go slow enough to spot Captain Woskowicz’s distinctive—luckily—figure. I isolated the data from the Pete’s wing initially and spotted Captain W in that hall six times in the week before the cameras went belly-up. Of course, he might have been down there more often and not gotten caught on camera. He visited the sporting goods store and the Make-a-Manatee operation three times each, the
nail salon and the sunglasses place once, Rock Star twice, Jen’s Toy Store and the Herpes Hut not at all, and Starla’s Styles six times. I made notes of the dates and times and circled Starla’s Styles.

His presence in the wing could easily be explained as routine patrols, but he hadn’t so much as glanced down some of the other minor wings, as far as I could tell from studying the camera data, and he’d never gone out of his way to get to know all the merchants. What could he want from a ladies’ boutique like Starla’s Styles? Was he buying gifts for all the women in his life? Only one way to find out. Waving to Harold and another security officer who was chatting with him, I strolled off through light Monday crowds to Starla’s Styles. Since I wasn’t technically working, and didn’t have on my uniform—I was still wearing the sweats and tee shirt I’d taught in—I left the Segway behind.

I’d been in Starla’s several times before, of course, to chat with Starla and her clerks and, once, to escort out a verbally abusive woman determined to get Starla to accept the return of an outfit she’d clearly worn several times. The store featured a sound track by Tony Bennett, soft lighting to flatter mature skin, and clothes designed to appeal to women of a certain age and girth. Lots of knits, polyester, and “forgiving” silhouettes. Let’s just say this was not a store a teenager would be caught dead in. Belts and accessories, including rings with faux gems as large as drawer pulls, occupied revolving racks in the center of the maroon-carpeted space. Three dressing rooms, fitted with solid doors with silver stars glued to the front, ran across the back of the small space. A bell dinged as I crossed the threshold, and Starla bustled out from behind a curtained doorway that guarded a stockroom or office area.