All Sales Fatal (9 page)

“What are you looking at?” Joel asked, peering over my shoulder.

“Let’s look at Wednesday’s footage and see if we can at least figure out when Captain W left the mall,” I said. He’d been missing more than forty-eight hours now, and I was actually feeling a bit concerned. It took Joel a few minutes to find the files and load them on his computer screen; when he had them up, I sat down to watch them, Joel hovering behind me.

Apparently, Woskowicz had spent most of the day holed up in his office, because he didn’t show up anywhere until early afternoon when the cameras caught him stalking through the halls to disappear into the cameraless wing. That was probably when he found me canvassing the merchants with Celio Arriaga’s photo. He reappeared moments later, talking on his cell phone. Setting up a date with one of his ex-wives, I thought wryly. He stopped to buy a coffee at Lola’s and chatted with Jay Callahan. Then he returned to the office and didn’t appear again until quitting time.

Strangely enough, he turned down the same corridor again. Hm.

“What’s he doing?” Joel asked from behind me.

“He was probably parked out there,” I said.

“Or maybe he had a lead on the Arriaga murder,” Joel offered. “He was following up on it and… and…” He stumbled to a halt, unable to flesh out his theory.

“And what? The murderer, probably a gangbanger, kidnapped him? And how would he have stumbled over a clue when he spent virtually the whole day in his office?”

Joel exhaled on a noisy sigh. “Okay. Look!” His finger stabbed at the screen, and I watched as Captain W appeared in the main corridor, easily recognizable in his uniform despite the grainy black-and-white images, and strode toward the security office. He seemed to be carrying a shopping bag, but I couldn’t make out a logo or even estimate the size since his body hid it from the camera. We lost him when he left the field of view of operational cameras, but caught a glimpse of him near the security office hall. Eight minutes later, a camera showed him turning into the Dillard’s wing and heading straight for the anchor store. Switching to a parking lot cam, we watched a black Chevy Tahoe that might have been Woskowicz’s drive toward the exit. Halting the images, I sat back, thinking. I finally had to admit I had nothing. Captain W spent the day in his office and then left. He could’ve been headed to the gym, to the grocery store, anywhere. I pushed back from the desk, frustrated.

“Were you here when Woskowicz came back on Wednesday afternoon?” I asked Joel.

Doubt and apology creased his face. “Probably. But I was on the phone a lot. I don’t remember noticing him. Oh. You know what? That was the day I left early to help my brother move into his new apartment, so I wasn’t here.” He looked slightly happier. “Harold was doing dispatch. Maybe the boss said something to him when he left?”

I realized with a tiny nip of surprise that I was actually
worried about Captain W. The man was annoying, borderline incompetent, sexist, and egotistical, but he must have some redeeming qualities or his three ex-wives wouldn’t still care about him. His two-day absence was way out of character, and I couldn’t help thinking something had happened to him. “I’m as bad as Aggie,” I muttered, standing.

“Who’s Aggie?” Joel asked.

I filled him in on last night’s encounter at Woskowicz’s house. “Were there any signs of a struggle?” Joel pushed a brown curl off his forehead.

“None. The place was neater than I’d expected.” An image of the cabinets and drawers hanging open popped into my mind. “You know,” I said slowly, “I’m wondering if someone searched the place.”

“Really? Cool.”

“It was probably one of the ex-wives looking for something,” I said. Although Aggie had certainly seemed to know just where everything was…

“You should tell the police.”

I shook my head, remembering Detective Helland’s reaction to my visit yesterday.

“Then we should search his place,” Joel said, enthused by the idea, “to see if we can figure out what someone else was looking for. It might help us find out what happened to the boss.”

“That would be breaking and entering,” I said in a discouraging voice. “Illegal.” And I knew someone who was very, very good at it…

I didn’t even
have to go looking for Grandpa Atherton. When I walked into the mall operations office twenty minutes later, summoned by Curtis Quigley, Grandpa stood in the middle of the reception area, one arm around the Easter
Bunny head, the rest of the costume draped over his other arm.

“Wha—?”

Before I could get the question out, Pooja gave me a radiant smile. “Meet our new Easter Bunny, EJ,” she said.

Grandpa’s spying habits were embarrassing and potentially a threat to my continued employment—witness the recent incident in Nordstrom—so I’d gone out of my way to ensure few of the mall’s administrators and merchants knew we were related. I responded as if I’d never met him.

“I hope this one intends to stay sober on the job,” I said with a darkling look at Grandpa. What was the man up to?

“Never touch alcohol,” he lied.

“Isn’t it kind of Mr. Atherton to fill in so the kids won’t be disappointed about not meeting the Easter Bunny?”

“Very kind,” I said, still suspicious of Grandpa’s motives. “How about I show you where the Bunny Station is?” I suggested, taking his arm and steering him toward the door.

“How kind of
you
,” he murmured.

After asking Pooja to tell Mr. Quigley I’d be right back, I let the glass door close behind us.

“Okay, Grandpa,” I said. “What are you up to?”

“Up to?” he asked, keeping pace with me as I glided on the Segway. “I heard there’d been a contretemps with the Easter Bunny yesterday, and I volunteered to fill in. I’m not even getting paid,” he added virtuously. The bunny head threatened to escape from his grasp, and he shifted it to clutch it with both arms in front of him. “And you know I’m a people watcher, Emma-Joy,” he said. “What better place to watch all the world go by than from the Easter Bunny’s enclosure?”

His seraphic smile didn’t fool me for a minute, but it was clear he wasn’t going to fill me in on his plans. “Fine,” I
said. “Just try not to promise the kids they’ll all get spy gadgets and decoder rings in their Easter baskets.”

He chuckled and held the elevator door for me. “I saw the flyer for the self-defense class,” he said. “Monday morning at eight thirty. I’ll be there.”

Drat. I’d been hoping that if I didn’t mention the class again, he’d forget about it. Sheer dumb luck that he’d seen a flyer in Quigley’s office. As we descended, I told him about my visit to Woskowicz’s house the night before and my suspicion that someone had searched it. I also told him about the camera sabotage and the possibility—likelihood?—that Woskowicz was the saboteur.

Grandpa’s blue eyes lit up. “What do you suppose he was into, Emma-Joy?”

“I really have no idea,” I admitted. “I’m going to go through the stuff in his office later today, see if I can turn up a calendar or a notebook or anything that might give me an idea.”

“And I’ll have a look-see at his house,” Grandpa said, “as soon as I’m done Easter Bunnying.”

I didn’t try to talk him out of it; after all, I’d gone looking for him, hoping for just this response. “Be careful,” I said.

“EJ! When have I ever not been careful?”

Eight

I got my
chance to go through Captain Woskowicz’s office when Joel went to lunch. I had every right to be in here, I told myself as I entered the office, a ten-by-ten-foot space with a wooden desk, a two-drawer filing cabinet, a swiveling desk chair, and a ladder-back chair for visitors. I was the acting director of security, after all. Curtis Quigley, in our brief meeting, had hinted that he might consider making the appointment permanent if Woskowicz continued to be a no-show. “Of course, we’d have to advertise the position,” he’d said, smoothing his striped silk tie, “but you’d be the front-runner.”

His words played in my head as I closed the office door behind me and approached the desk. Would accepting the job as Fernglen’s director of security mean I’d given up on my dreams of returning to police work? Not necessarily, I decided. It wasn’t like I’d have to sign a five-year contract or anything. If—
when
—I landed a real police job, I could give my two weeks’ notice, help train my replacement, and move
on. In the meantime, being director of security would mean a healthy bump in my paycheck. Finding my train of thought vaguely distasteful—it was as if I were conceding that something had happened to Woskowicz that would preclude his return—I studied the desk. The surface was nearly bare, except for a computer and the usual desk tools: stapler, electric pencil sharpener, digital clock. Woskowicz’s stainless steel travel mug sat just off a calendar blotter, the only semipersonal item in sight. I powered up his computer and pulled open the middle desk drawer while I waited for it to boot.

Nothing but pens, pencils, paper clips, and a tube of Bengay. Probably for soothing all those steroid-stretched muscles. The drawer on the right yielded a bottle of Wild Turkey, a girlie magazine—I’d thought they were solely for the titillation of adolescent boys at convenience store magazine racks—and two pairs of socks I hoped were clean. Wishing I’d thought to put on latex gloves, I opened the left-side drawer. A black cassette recorder—practically an antique in these days of MP3 players and iTunes—rested on a pair of odiferous athletic shoes. I pulled it out and a cord dangled from it. Not the kind you plugged into an outlet, but a thin, flexible cord with a suction-cup thingie at one end. It was the sort of item you could get at RadioShack. By attaching it to your phone, you could record phone calls. Hm. Did Woskowicz record all his calls, or was he looking to record specific calls? I thumbed the Eject button and the lid popped up. No tape. I moved the shoes aside and felt around the bottom of the drawer but didn’t find any cassettes. Maybe the recorder had been sitting there for fifteen years, unused.

Putting it back in the drawer, I turned my attention to the computer. The standard desktop icons were arranged on the screen’s left, but a request for a password left me stymied. I didn’t know Woskowicz well enough to hazard an intelligent guess. I typed in his first name, then “Kronos,” then
each of his wives’ names, and finally “alimony,” but had to admit defeat when the system continued to tell me “incorrect password.” Shutting down the computer, I swiveled the desk chair to face the file cabinet behind the desk. The top drawer slid open easily and held files related to security office operations—work schedules, budget documents, security directives from the FBI head office. I tugged on the bottom drawer. Locked. I felt a quick spurt of interest but quickly suppressed it; in all likelihood, the drawer contained only personnel evaluations and disciplinary documentation. Nevertheless, I searched for the key, hoping Woskowicz had hidden it here somewhere. If he had it on his key ring, I was screwed.

When I lifted the phone to look beneath it, it rang, startling me so badly I dropped it, knocking the electric pencil sharpener off the desk. The little plastic bin that held the shavings popped off, spewing graphite particles and enough wood shavings to give the impression that a termite colony had moved in. What a mess. I took a deep breath, then answered the phone. “Fernglen Galleria Security Office. Officer Ferris. May I help you?”

A woman looking for a pair of prescription glasses she’d left in a dressing room asked if anyone had turned them in. Putting her on hold, I walked out front to check our lost-and-found log. “We have them,” I told her. I gave her directions to the security office, told her she’d have to show ID and sign for the glasses, and hung up on her “Thanks.” Tearing a sheet of paper out of the steno pad on the desk, I bent to scoop the pencil shavings onto it and funnel them into the trash can. My fingers brushed something cold, and I leaned over to blow the pencil dust away from a shiny metal key. Very sneaky hiding place, I mentally congratulated Captain W.

I picked it up and swiveled the chair to face the filing
cabinet. The key slid home, and I felt a brief moment of triumph as I turned it. The drawer eased out with a well-oiled lurch, and I found myself looking at a shoe box. Not for one minute did I think I’d find a pair of shoes in that box. No one took so much effort to secure a pair of shoes. I lifted the box out with one hand, disturbed by a solid weight that slid to one end when I tilted it. Setting the box on the desk, I used one finger to tip the lid up. Surprise, surprise. I found myself staring at a gun. A length of dark metal with a cross-hatched grip. A Kel-Tec P-32 semiautomatic pistol with a short barrel, frequently recommended for women because of its light weight. I’d considered buying one but decided on something with more stopping power. I didn’t dare touch the gun for fear of messing up fingerprint evidence. Why the hell did Woskowicz have a gun in his file cabinet? The scent of gunpowder filtered to me, and I had the uneasy feeling that the gun had been fired not too long ago.

“What are you doing?”

I jumped and looked up, automatically sliding the lid back onto the shoe box. Joel Rooney stood in the doorway, his expression one of curiosity, not condemnation.