Duffel Bags And Drownings (9 page)

“Hey, how’s it going?” Sandy said, getting a soda from the vending machine. She sat
down at the table with us. “Can one of you give me a ride home tonight?”

“Something happen to your car?” Bella asked.

“No, my car is great,” Sandy said. “My boyfriend’s car broke down.”

“I’m not taking that dirt bag anywhere,” Bella told her.

“Dump him,” I said, for about the millionth time. “He’s a loser.”

“He isn’t a loser,” Sandy said. “He’s an artist.”

“He does tattoos,” I said.

“That’s art, Haley,” she insisted. “Anyway, we’re kind of in limbo right now.”

“Let me guess,” Bella said. “That’s
his
idea.”

“Well, yeah,” Sandy admitted. “Last night he called me because his car broke down
and he wanted me to pick him up.”

“So I guess you dropped everything and ran to get him?” I asked.

“I had to,” Sandy said. “He was with someone and she had to get to work.”

“
She
?” Bella’s eyes bugged out. “He was out with another girl and he called
you
to pick them up?”

“And you
did it
?” I asked.

“Well, she had to get to work,” Sandy pointed out. “But he says that just proves how
much he cares for me.”

“What the hell are you talking about?” Bella asked.

Honestly, I was lost here, too.

Sandy seemed clear on everything, however, and said, “Don’t you see? He lied to that
other girl about being involved with someone else—me. But he told me the truth. He
didn’t even make up a big story or anything—like she was his cousin, or something—when
I picked them up. He says that just proves he holds me in a much higher regard than
her.”

“Lord have mercy,” Bella moaned, shaking her head.

“So why do you need a ride home tonight?” I asked,

“Because he needs my car,” Sandy said.

“But he couldn’t pick you up after work?” I asked.

“He has a date,” Sandy said.

“I’m out of here.” Bella headed for the door.

I was about to sprint out behind her when the door swung open and Rita, the cashiers’
supervisor, stormed in. She was about as wide as she was tall, and always wore stretch
pants and a shirt with a farm animal on it. Tonight, it was a cow being ridden by
a leprechaun.

“Break time is over, princess,” she barked at me.

I hated Rita. In fact, I double-hated her, triple-hated her, and now simply hated
her to infinity.

I’m pretty sure she felt the same way about me.

I got up and dumped my trash, then walked out of the breakroom without so much as
a glimpse in her direction.

My little corner of retail purgatory tonight was the housewares department. I was
okay working there because I could slip into the stock room often, pretending to look
for something for a customer.

I mean, really, just because you had a job, did that mean you had to actually work?
Personally, I saw little correlation between the two.

I spotted an old couple near the pots and pans looking confused, as if they needed
help, and my own brand of customer service immediately took over. I whipped around
to head in the opposite direction and ran smack into someone.

Yikes! I jumped back, then looked up.

Oh, crap.

It was Detective Dan Grayson

How had he sneaked up on me like that? I have excellent avoidance skills. Was he really
stealthier than me? Jeez, how annoying.

Then it hit me—why was he here? Whatever the reason, I figured it couldn’t be good
for me.

“I can’t talk now,” I told him in what I hoped was my most serious I’m-dedicated-to-my-job
voice.

I guess I didn’t pull it off very well because he shifted closer and said, “What I
have to say won’t take long.”

I hoped his short statement wouldn’t include the words “under” and “arrest.”

“I understand you’re working for the costume police,” Dan said.

Oh, crap. That’s the stupid excuse I’d given those extra-large guys when I’d gone
to question them about Jeri’s murder.

Still, I wasn’t going to stand here and let Dan Grayson get the upper hand. I gazed
up at him trying for a combined look of innocence and nonchalance—which would have
been a heck of a lot easier if he didn’t have those gorgeous blue eyes—but he seemed
totally immune.

Damn. I hate it when that happens.

“What were you doing questioning a suspect?” he asked. He held up his hand to silence
me as if he thought I’d deny it, which was true but insulting just the same. “I talked
to them both a few minutes ago. They told me you were there.”

“What took you so long?” I asked. “I was on to that lead ages ago.”

I’d hoped to distract him from discussing my involvement in Jeri’s investigation,
but he wasn’t having it.

“On the day of the murder,” Dan said, “did you see Cady Wills arrive at the catering
company?”

Okay, this was a totally lame thing to ask me. He knew very well that I’d seen Cady’s
arrival because he was there when she’d walked in and had a total meltdown after Lourdes
told her about Jeri.

“I saw her come in at the same time you did,” I told him.

“Not before?” he asked.

Okay, now I got it.

“Several people had mentioned they thought they’d seen Cady earlier,” I said. “But
I didn’t see her.”

Dan nodded and, for some reason, I felt disappointed that I hadn’t come up with some
fabulous new info that would break the case wide open for him.

I wished I had a lead or some evidence to share with him, but I didn’t. Everything
I’d turned up so far had gone nowhere. All I had was suspicion and some unrelated
loose ends.

“Have you uncovered anything,” Dan asked, and gave me a little grin, “in your job
as the costume police?”

I grinned back—I couldn’t help it. He had one of those grins.

“Nothing,” I said. “How about you? Want to share something?”

His grin morphed into something totally different, and I got the impression he wasn’t
thinking about Jeri’s homicide investigation.

It made me forget about the case, too.

He was giving off an I’m-going-to-ask-you-out vibe—which, hopefully, I wasn’t confusing
with an I-still-think-you-might-be-a-suspect vibe—but he didn’t say anything. We shared
a long, smoldering middle-school moment, then both of us seemed to come to our senses
at the same time.

“Maybe when this case is closed?” Dan asked.

“Maybe,” I said.

He gave me another little sideways grin which, in turn, caused my heart to do a weird
little skip. But when he walked away I wasn’t thinking about my erratic heartbeat.
I was thinking about Cady.

Apparently, Dan considered her a suspect in Jeri’s death.

But why?

* * *

“Something major just went down,” Kayla told me. “Have you heard?”

I hadn’t but, of course, I wanted to—but only if it was something good, which I doubted,
given the way my week had gone so far.

We were walking through the hallway at L.A. Affairs. I’d just arrived—a few minutes
late but oh well—and was headed for a rendezvous with a desperately needed first cup
of coffee in the breakroom. Kayla, who always got there early, seemed wired already.

“Priscilla assigned the Daughters of the Southland luncheon this morning first thing,”
Kayla said. “She hired a new girl and stuck her with it.”

I was in no mood to be toyed with.

“Are you sure?” I asked.

“Positive,” Kayla told me. She heaved a sigh of relief. “Looks like we’re in the clear.”

She headed back the other way and I kept walking toward the breakroom.

This was definitely good news—on a day when I could use some. The Brannocks’ St. Patrick’s
Day party was this evening. Everything was pretty much done—I’m actually darn good
at this job—but there were always a few last minute things to handle and, of course,
a snag or two to deal with. Today’s possible snag was Cady Faye Catering.

“Haley?”

I heard Priscilla call my name as I passed her office. My Holt’s training immediately
took over. I found another gear and walked faster.

“Haley?” she called again. “Haley!”

There was really no place I could escape Priscilla—this works much better when there’s
a stockroom to hide in—so I stopped and turned around, as if I hadn’t heard her call
my name three times already.

Priscilla hurried toward me looking a bit grim. I flashed on the possibility that
Kayla had been wrong and that Priscilla was about to assign the Daughter of Southland’s
luncheon to me. Immediately, I mustered my I-can-get-out-of-this brain cells—not easy
without the benefit of a mocha frappuccino from Starbucks, a Snickers bar, or a cup
of coffee.

“I need to check with you about the Brannock party today,” Priscilla said, in a low
voice. “Is Cady Faye Catering handling everything to our standards?”

Yikes! This might be worse than getting stuck with that dreadful old ladies’ luncheon.
I’d convinced Priscilla to let me use Cady Faye. No way did I want her to know I was
worried about their work—not with my probation period nearly over.

“Great,” I lied—what else could I do? “Everything is great.”

“Excellent.” Priscilla smiled. “Now that I have your recommendation, I’m going to
let all the other planners know Cady Faye Catering is on our list of approved vendors.
I’ll announce it at our next weekly office meeting—and I’ll let everyone know you
discovered them.”

Oh, crap.

“Keep up the good work, Haley,” Priscilla said, and headed back down the hallway.

If Cady Faye Catering screwed up this event today it would look bad, really bad, on
me. I couldn’t let that happen. I grabbed the Brannocks’ portfolio out of my office
and left.

Of course, the food for the Brannock’s party wasn’t my only problem. Jeri had been
murdered at the Cady Faye Catering location, which meant there was a good possibility
that somebody who worked for the company had killed her—and that person just might
also be working at the Brannocks’ party tonight.

I hit the Starbucks drive-thru closest to the L.A. Affairs office and powered up my
brain cells with a mocha frappuccino, then headed toward Cady Faye Catering on Ventura
Boulevard.

The biggest thought screaming in my head was that if something went down at the Brannocks’
tonight, L.A. Affairs’ reputation would be ruined—to say nothing of my chances of
continued employment.

I sipped my frappie and wondered if maybe there really was some psycho, catering-company-server
killer on the loose who would do away with another Cady Faye employee tonight. It
didn’t seem likely, but my investigation into Jeri’s death hadn’t turned up anything
solid. Detectives Elliston and Grayson hadn’t made an arrest so, apparently, they
weren’t doing any better than I was.

The one crucial piece of this whole thing that was still missing was motive. Who would
want to kill Jeri?

Lourdes was the only person I’d found so far who didn’t like Jeri, but had she disliked
her enough to kill her? Cady’s whereabouts were still unaccounted for at the time
of Jeri’s murder, but so what?

I’d gotten a weird vibe from Molly at the attorney’s office yesterday, like she knew
more than she was telling. Was it anything important to the case? And what about her
comment that Jeri thought Cady Faye Catering might go out of business? What was that
all about? Did it have anything to do with Jeri’s death? I didn’t see how.

If I was going to figure out who killed Jeri I needed to stretch my thinking, I decided.
The only thing left to do was play a hunch, imagine the worst in somebody who seemed
totally innocent, and connect the dots in a way I hadn’t considered before.

I swung into the shopping center half expecting to see Jack Bishop and his black Land
Rover there—or maybe that was just wishful thinking. I parked outside the front entrance
to Cady Faye Catering, gulped down the last of my mocha frappuccino, grabbed my things,
and went inside.

Faye was talking with a mother and daughter—they had a definite we’re-planning-a-wedding
look about them—so I went into her office to wait. I intended to go over the menu
with her and make double-sure everything was set for tonight.

I was too keyed up to sit, so I paced back and forth. Honestly, I didn’t know how
Faye could work in the tiny office. The furniture was jammed together and packed with
all kinds of stuff—including, I realized, the green duffel bag I’d seen in here earlier,
which was still on the floor by the file cabinet.

Okay, that was weird.

I’d thought the duffel belonged to Faye but maybe it didn’t because she hadn’t taken
it home. So it could have belonged to somebody who worked for her—someone who’d planned
a getaway complete with sexy lingerie.

But whoever it was apparently didn’t want to claim the duffel from the boss’ office,
probably because the owner assumed Faye had gone through the bag looking for an I.D.
tag, as Wendy and I had done when we’d found it in the employee lounge. That would
alert Faye to an illicit affair or perhaps a kinky lingerie fetish—something few people
wanted to share with their employer.

Then it hit me that the duffel must have belonged to Jeri. She’d probably planned
a few days with her married boyfriend after her shift ended here at Cady Faye, but
had been killed. After all, she was having an affair. The dating phase of a relationship
called for sexy lingerie and hot getaways.

Of course, maybe Jeri wasn’t the only person here who was having an affair. The duffel
could belong to most anyone at the catering company or the girls from Maisie’s Costume
Shop who’d been in the employee lounge the day Jeri died.

“No need to worry about us,” Faye said, as she breezed into the office. She sat at
her desk and plucked a file folder from one of the stacks. “Everything is under control.”

Faye didn’t seem concerned or offended that I’d come to check on things, which was
a real relief. While I enjoy an occasional confrontation, I didn’t want to get into
anything with her, especially on a day as important as this one.