Black Thursday (10 page)

fourteen

I wasn't at all
convinced that having Channel Three news tape us at Catherine Carter's memorial service was (as Anastasia insisted) not only in acceptable taste, but the ideal way to let viewers know we cared about the deceased and her family.

Then again, I wasn't sure about much of anything as I left the Frugarmy on Main Street and raced over to Bargain Barn. Was Contrary Claire incognito amongst the cash mob? Was the email a hoax and she was, in fact, dead? Why hadn't Barbara M., who'd suggested we all shop together in the first place, bothered to show up? Why did Alan want to see me ASAP?

I didn't have to wonder about the last question for very long since Alan was standing outside the entrance to the store as I pulled up.

“Mind if we talk out here?” he asked, opening the door to my car and jumping in the passenger seat. “The walls have ears, if you know what I mean.”

“Okay,” I said, but I wondered if
he
was okay as I pulled into a nearby parking space and killed the engine.

He certainly didn't look okay.

Alan's eyes were bloodshot, his hair unkempt, and his beard well past the five o'clock shadow stage. His wrinkled, semi-stained, Bargain Barn polo and khakis told me he hadn't changed anytime recently. And, seeing as his woodsy, spicy, soapy smell had given way to a somewhat less pleasant undertone, I strongly suspected he hadn't showered, either.

“It took me all night …” he said, confirming my overriding suspicion that he hadn't slept or been home at all. “But I figured it out.”

“You've figured out what happened?”

“I've devoted my career to being on top of everything there is to know about competitive business models, corporate strategy, sales techniques, and hostile takeovers.” He shook his head. “Never in my wildest dreams did I imagine they'd go this far.”

“They?” I asked.

“I haven't figured out how they pulled it off, and I don't know which one of the big-box outfits is behind this,” he said. “But I will.”

My head, already throbbing, began to spin. “You think one of the chain retailers—”

“They haven't been able to kill Bargain Barn, so they resorted to the next best thing.”

“Killing a shopper in your store?”

“In the middle of the Black Friday shopping crush,” he whispered as though someone in the parking lot could possibly hear through the closed windows of my car. “As brilliant as it is cold-blooded and evil, don't you think?”

All I could think was that the suggestion of a corporate “hit” or whatever it was he'd convinced himself had happened, fell somewhere on the spectrum between sleep-deprived delusion and stress-induced temporary insanity.

“They figured the
accident
would not only scare shoppers away, causing receipts to go down on the most crucial night of the year, but simultaneously put a taint on the store forever.” His voice cracked. “Not to mention making us uninsurable.”

“But Alan, I—”

“You,” he said, not pausing long enough for me to contribute my two cents. “If it weren't for you, they'd have already succeeded.”

“Me?”

He managed a weak smile. “Because of you, your Frugarmy, and all the TV coverage, we still had the best Black Friday receipts we've ever had.”

And Frank
, I didn't say, even though he was the one who really deserved the thanks. I would have panicked had he not talked me off the ledge late Thursday night.

“It wasn't until the next morning, when the store went dead and stayed dead, that I figured out what had to have happened. I mean, who wants to spend their Thanksgiving shopping in a store hexed by tragedy?”

“Alan, I'm sure shoppers will be back in droves once the commotion dies down.”

“By that time Bargain Barn will be so devalued and broke from paying out on lawsuits that whoever is behind this will have bought me out for pennies on the dollar.”

“Have you spoken to the police about all of this?”

“They've already tied things up with a neat bow and don't want to hear about it.” He pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and pretended to blow his nose while he surreptitiously dabbed tears from the corners of his eyes. “So I really can't until I have some firm evidence.”

“Which I may have,” I said, thinking of CC's latest message.

He looked up.

“I got an email.”

“What kind of email?”

“Here's the thing …” I took a deep breath of the stale car air. “There's this person who's constantly making critical comments about everything on my website.”

“You mean that CC person?”

“You know who she is?”

“I saw her comment about not coming to Bargain Barn on Thursday night.”

“I was hoping you hadn't,” I said.

“I was a little bugged until I noticed that she seemed to have something to say about almost everything you've posted lately.”

“She's definitely been a nuisance, but I honestly didn't think all that much about her either. Not until I heard the victim's name.”

“Cathy Carter,” he said.

“Kind of coincidental they share the same initials, don't you think?”

“Very,” he said.

“Unfortunately, the police don't seem to agree.”

Alan's eyes widened. “You've already spoken with them?”

I sighed and recounted my interview with Detective McClarkey, his suggestion that opening the investigation might well cast suspicion directly on me, and my decision to tell Alan about the email I'd received yesterday afternoon before approaching them again.

“And you say this email was signed CC?”

I nodded.

“And what exactly did it say?”

I took a deep breath. “All's well that ends well.”

I waited for Alan to process everything I'd said and start asking the questions I'd been asking myself since yesterday afternoon:

So you think CC actually is Cathy Carter and someone got mad enough to kill her, or she's a homicidal maniac who happened to target a woman with her same initials?

And a few I hadn't thought of yet:

This doesn't exactly jibe with my theory, but I have to say it's a relief to think Big Box Brother isn't out to get me.

“There's only one possible conclusion,” Alan finally said after what felt like an interminable silence.

“Which is?”

“They must have been tracking my every move these past months, knew I was doing an advertising push on your website, and set me up.”

I was now sure that lack of sleep and stress had sent Alan off the rails. “By having CC heckle me?”

“Or at least figuring out who she was and somehow enticing her to go to the store so they could—”

My cell, sitting face up on the console between us, began to ring.

We both looked down as
Frank Cell
appeared in the display.

“I'll get that later,” I said, without picking up the phone or allowing myself to wonder what he wanted.

What I wanted.

Alan now looked as perplexed as he did wild-eyed. “I have to say I was kind of surprised to see him and his whole family the other night.”

“It was something of a surprise to me too,” I said.

“Aren't you two in the middle of a divorce?”

“Yes,” I said, nodding. “But it's complicated.”

“Got it,” he said, almost as dismissively as Detective McClarkey had.

“I wish I did,” I said, in reference not only to my marital situation, but to Alan's seemingly reality-challenged theory of corporate espionage, greed, and murder. “In any case—”

My text alert pinged.

I looked down, dreading a repeat of last night's text from Frank.

Luckily, it was Anastasia:

Carter memorial service confirmed for tomorrow at ten am.

Alan, who had once again reflexively looked down when I did, simply nodded.

“You already knew about the service?”

“The husband was in no condition to plan anything,” Alan said. “And considering his wife was killed by corporate scumbags bent on destroying
my
business, I felt like I had no choice but make the arrangements for the Carters.”

“You arranged the memorial service?”

“It seemed like the right thing to do,” he said reaching for his handkerchief again.

“Alan, that was exceptionally kind of you,” I said, touching his shoulder and thinking about my own culpability. After all, Cathy Carter, whoever she was, would still be alive if I hadn't recommended she shop at Bargain Barn Thursday night.

“I couldn't possibly have put together my own wife's funeral.” His voice cracked. “I barely made it through that day.”

“Your wife … ?”

He nodded.

“I'm so sorry,” I said, feeling the utter hollowness of the only words I could think of to say. “I had no idea.”

“It's been almost ten years,” he said as though it was both forever ago and yesterday.

I was trying to figure out how to politely inquire about what happened when Alan spotted a pair of shoppers who'd stopped outside the store and began to compare something on their smartphones.

“Damn it,” he said, “they look like secret shoppers.”

“Secret shoppers?” I asked.

“Sent by whoever's behind all this,” he whispered, opening the car door and sliding out. “Let's talk later.”

fifteen

My plan had been
to pass along my information to Alan, let him go to the police with it, and, as Detective McClarkey advised, not look for any more trouble. Instead, I sat in my car watching Alan size up what looked like garden-variety shoppers before slinking past and disappearing through the employee entrance to the store.

Clearly, lack of sleep and stress were working against Alan's mental equilibrium. It was awfully far-fetched to believe a corporation would be so desperate to put a single-location family-owned business, even one as established and prominent as Bargain Barn, out of business that they would “accidentally” kill off a shopper. But, as I thumbed through my emails, stopping at the message
from CC, I was glad to have a place to start, theory-wise.

On the unlikely assumption that a
mystery
corporation had been tracking Bargain Barn's moves, they would likely know about his advertising push on my blog. The problem was, this shady entity (whoever they were) would have to have been aware of CC's negative posts, managed to
locate her right after she trash-talked Bargain Barn, and then somehow convinced her to go out and shop there just so they could kill her off.

Somehow, it didn't quite add up.

If—and it seemed awfully iffy—CC was some sort of plant in the first place, it was theoretically possible that Alan and Bargain Barn were being set up to fail. Albeit in one of the oddest, twistiest ways imaginable.

I still couldn't quite get my head around the details, but one way or another, I felt even more sure that whatever happened wasn't just an unfortunate, untimely accident.

While I figured I'd leave the investigating of murderous corporations to my new partner in solving a crime no one else believed had been committed, I did have an email address that, in the hands of someone with some actual technical savvy, could very well be key to everything.

I picked up my cell and texted FJ:

Is there any way to locate who or where an email came from?

My return message pinged almost immediately.

Meaning you heard from CC?

I dug up an old email,
I wrote, not wanting to worry him with the real details.
I was hoping you might be able to track where it came from.

It's not like I'm a computer CSI guy,
came back.
But I can try.

Thanks,
I wrote, forwarding the [email protected] address and wondering how long the process might take.

But not till we get back home.

Where are you?
I asked.

Some people are coming to see the house again.

There's another showing?

Dad says to listen to the voicemail he just left you.

I exited my text messages, went to voicemail, and listened to the message I'd planned to leave unplayed, at least for a while:

Maddie, the realtor just saw you on TV and figured this was a good time to have another showing on the house. We need to make ourselves scarce, so I'm taking the gang to lunch and a movie or something. I'll have everyone back before I have to go into work this afternoon. They're all planning to go to that wedding at the mall except Eloise, who says she wants to go but needs a car right after to meet up with some friends. I told her that since you'd need to take two cars anyway, we'd figure it out with her.

_____

Since my first priority—heading home for some long overdue rest—wasn't exactly an option for a while, I settled for the next best thing: a mind- and body-rejuvenating trip to the gym.

Despite a recent workout-related near-death encounter, I somehow managed to maintain a commitment to semi-regular exercise. It didn't hurt that Xtreme Fitness had given me a free
28
membership for my “troubles,” including a lifetime gold membership at Xtreme Challenge, their upscale sister facility.

The new gym not only offered state-of-the-art equipment and exercise classes, but upgraded members received spa treatments at 25% off
29
and a locker, complete with nameplate, to store their workout clothing.

I pulled into the parking lot and went inside.

“Welcome, Mrs. Michaels,” the young woman at the front counter said as she scanned my gold-rimmed card. “I've been watching you on TV! I can't believe that lady
died
at Bargain Barn. So awful!”

“I'm hoping a little exercise will give me some relief from the stress of it all.”

“I'll bet you could also use the complimentary fifteen-minute Thanksgiving detox chair massage we're offering today after your workout.”

While the gesture was nice, I usually passed on their special promotions—primarily because of the awkwardness near the end where the masseuse or aesthetician tried to up-sell the service for another fifteen or thirty minutes (at the regular rate), chargeable directly to your house account.

On the other hand, if someone had told me my safe, cushy, seemingly blissful life as the well-heeled wife of Channel Three's respected Frank Finance Michaels was not only going to come apart at the seams, but that the career I'd developed while trying to keep things together would put me in the midst of not one but two suspicious deaths …

“What do you have open?” I asked, figuring I'd still have time to shower, get home, and hopefully catch a quick nap before Higgledy the monkey's evening nuptials.

“Let's see,” she said looking at the master calendar. “We have a twelve forty-five, and it looks like Susan's coming in at one. Oh, and we have L'Raine coming on at one thirty. She—”

“L'Raine from Xtreme Fitness?” I asked. Not that there could be another L'Raine who happened to be both a massage therapist and work for the Xtreme chain.

“She's usually at our other gym, but we have her on schedule today because of the promotion.” The counter girl asked, “Should I book you with her? She's one of our very best.”

If L'Raine was, in fact, seeing Griff as I suspected, the last thing I wanted to do was spend fifteen minutes trying
not
to pump her for any pillow talk tidbits she might have gleaned from him about Cathy Carter or Bargain Barn. If she wasn't, she was likely headed on an evening date with my brother-in-law, another topic that wasn't exactly relaxing to think about.

“One thirty is a little long to wait. How about the one o'clock?”

She smiled. “Perfect.”

And, thankfully,
perfect
pretty much summed up my next hour.

I slipped into yoga pants and a T-shirt, headed for an elliptical machine, and plugged my headphones into the satellite radio dock. Willing my mind to relax while my body got in gear, I somehow managed to block out everything but working up a sweat to Classic Soul radio.

I spent the first nine minutes of my chair massage having the knots worked out of my neck and shoulders and even had a few preliminary thoughts about what I might eventually say to Frank before I had to politely pass on the offer to extend my massage to a full sixty minutes.

By the time I'd showered and was presentable enough to walk out of the gym, I even had something of an opening for a discussion with Frank.
I really don't know that I can ever fully recover from the nuclear bomb you've dropped on our marriage, but given we will always be co-parents to our terrific kids I'm willing to at least consider the possibility of trying
…

I even managed to circumvent an awkward hello with L'Raine, who was turned away from me and busily working her thumbs down the spine of whoever had taken the one-thirty slot as I made my way out the front door and over to my car.

I started the engine and backed out of my space. As I began to exit the lot, I happened to spot a silver sedan just nondescript enough to be an unmarked police car. Inside, a stocky young man with a close-cropped goatee and a uniform was keying something into his phone. His cap hid what I suspected was a rookie crew cut and obscured his cute, boyish face to the point where I couldn't be positive. Still, it didn't take a seasoned investigator to figure out it was Griff.

I may have bumbled my way through the DeSimone investigation (and once FJ got back with some information, I'd be well on my way to doing the same with another), but it wasn't hard to deduce that Griff and L'Raine had to be an item.

Clearly he'd dropped her off for work and was in the lot sending a message before he took off toward the police station or wherever it was he was heading.

Not that it was any of my business, but somehow, she hadn't struck me as his type when I'd introduced them at her request a few months ago.

As for my business, I wanted and needed to talk to him, but I definitely couldn't.

He looked up and spotted me as I rolled by. Considering his car was in an empty row practically facing mine, I also couldn't just drive off.

Instead, I pulled up along beside him, willed my heart to stop thumping, and rolled down my window.

Griff smiled his dimply smile. “Twice in two days!”

“What are the odds?” I smiled back. “Do you work out here now, too?”

“Actually—” His police radio bleeped. “Hold that thought,” he said, answering the call with a string of acronyms and abbreviations.

“Are you going to Higgledy's commitment ceremony tonight?” I asked as soon as he hung up, not necessarily wanting to hear exactly why he was at the gym, even though I'd asked the question in the first place.

“I'm afraid I already have plans,” he said. “Glad I ran into you here, though.”

Before I could manage a
So you and L'Raine, huh?
he added, “Since I missed you down at the station.”

“How did you know I was at the—”

He smiled and shook his head. “Turns out cops are like a bunch of gossipy school girls.”

“Apparently so.”

“I heard you were there and talking to McClarkey, but I never heard exactly why you'd stopped by.”

I wanted to fill Griff in more than anything. He'd know exactly what to think not only of the email I'd received from someone signing off as CC, but of Alan's crazy but increasingly plausible story.

Which was the problem.

If Alan was right that whoever was behind this was dangerous, ruthless, and had connections, I couldn't risk the story becoming stationhouse gossip.

“It was dumb of me to have gone running down there,” I said. “I just wanted to let someone know about the coincidence between the name of the person that died and this person whose been a pest on my website.”

“Doesn't sound dumb to me,” Griff said.

“I wouldn't have said anything. It's just that she goes by CC.”

“Seriously?” Griff asked immediately. “Like Cathy Carter?”

“Yeah. But Detective McClarkey assured me the incident was an accident and there's nothing more there.”

Griff shrugged. “He's the boss.”

“Definitely,” I said, wishing I could say more.

As I was wondering what Griff would make over the
All's well that ends well
message, his radio bleeped again.

“Speaking of which,” he said.

“McClarkey?” I felt my face flush with his nod.

“Gotta run,” he said. “But if anything else comes up, be sure and let me know.”

“I will,” I said.

“I mean it,” Griff said. “McClarkey is a smart detective, but he can be a little hard to talk to sometimes.”

“You think?” I asked.

“I know,” he said.

“Good to see you again,” I said.

“You too,” he said, flashing his sweet dimpled smile. “With any luck, maybe we'll make it a hat trick.”

_____

As luck would have it, FJ and Trent hadn't gone with their father to lunch and a movie (or even down the street to their friend's house) but had lingered in the driveway playing basketball just long enough to hear the wife of the couple that had come through sniff and say something along the lines of
Bigger isn't always better.

Because the prospective buyers were in and out, both boys had gotten to work trying to track where the email from CC had originated.

“So we entered the email address on this site that tells you who it's registered to,” FJ said, sitting behind the desk in my office. “But for a registrant, we only get ‘Domains by Proxy'.”

“Which means what?” I asked.

“The owner's name is blocked,” Trent said, still clutching a basketball under his arm. “Which is sort of common.”

“But we did figure out another thing or two,” FJ said, staring at the computer monitor.

“Like what?”

“The email message came from a different account than the comments from CC on your website.”

“And did you look into
that
email address?” I asked, trying to sound calmer than I felt.

“Address
es
,” Trent said. “There were like three or four different ones.”

“As in, CC was writing from more than one email account?”

“Sure looks that way.”

“And they were all blocked too,” FJ added.

“All of them?”

Trent nodded.

If emails were coming from various sources all claiming to be Contrary Claire, it was suddenly way more likely that CC somehow stood not for Cathy Carter, but Conniving Corporation.

Crazy as it still felt.

“Thanks, guys,” I finally said. “I need to make a call or two.”

“Before you do,” FJ said, pulling up my email and pointing to the message from [email protected]. “You wanna tell us what's really going on?”

“I'm just trying to figure out who CC actually was,” I said, still hoping I sounded relatively nonchalant.

“Mom,” Trent said, and in that drawn out exasperated teenager way. “We saw the new email.”