High Heels Are Murder (35 page)

She pulled a receipt from her purse. Josie thought the blond security woman turned a shade paler. But the black-haired one studied the receipt, then gave a small smile. “Your receipt was issued at nine ten today at our Clayton location, ma’am. It’s eleven fifteen at the Dorchester Mall. You’re using an old receipt with a new scarf. Step inside, please, so we can discuss it.”

“I’m sure it’s a problem with your cash register,” Ms. Chanel said, but she didn’t resist when security steered her inside the store and escorted her to a door behind a Japanese screen. The scene was conducted so quietly, the customers didn’t notice.

“An old scam,” Josie said. “Ms. Chanel buys an expensive item at one store in the chain and keeps the receipt in her purse. Then she goes to another store and shoplifts the same item. If she’s caught, she tries to convince security it’s a mistake. If she gets away with it, she’ll return it for cash at a third store in the chain, or sell it on eBay.”

“Do you think she’s a pro?” Alyce asked.

“No, a professional would have spotted security closing in and dumped the scarf or paid for it. She’s an amateur getting a thrill and a five-finger discount. I’ll bet her mortified family will bail her out, and it won’t be the first time they’ve had to deal with Mummy’s hobby. She’s pretty good, but security was alert.”

Bass thumps from loud hip-hop vibrated down the corridor, drowning out the soft classical music on the mall’s speakers.

Josie sighed. “I try to appreciate that music,” she said. “It’s supposed to be modern poetry.”

“Yeah, a lot of words rhyme with ‘bitch,’” Alyce said. “A store like the Gangsta Boyz Home is out of place at the Dorchester. Josie, you have to agree with that.”

Three baggy-pantsed teens came out of the Gangsta Boyz Home and shoved their way through the mall crowd, leaving behind a trail of outraged glares.

“I’m sorry, but I don’t want to shop with gangstas,” Alyce said. “I don’t feel safe. Jake would be furious if he knew I was at the Dorchester Mall. He made me promise I wouldn’t go here anymore.”

Statements like that made Josie glad she wasn’t married. She didn’t like making promises to a man—or sneaking around when she broke them.

“Jake’s afraid you’ll be attacked by the cane-and-walker crowd in Cissy’s Tea Shoppe?”

“Don’t be silly. Everyone knows crime is out of control at the Dorchester Mall, and it’s the fault of the Gangsta Boyz Home. All the good stores are moving out. I don’t know why it’s here.”

“Because the Dorchester invited them. The mall put in a gangsta clothes store and a video arcade. Those businesses aren’t for the tea shop crowd.”

“But why?” Alyce said. “Our crowd is so well behaved.”

“And so tightfisted,” Josie said. “The women who shop here buy one cashmere sweater at Lord & Taylor and wear it twenty years. You can’t keep a mall open with that kind of spending. The mall wanted a younger crowd who spent money on clothes, sneakers and CDs.”

“Instead, they brought in the people who shoplift them.”

“Alyce!” Josie said.

“Well, it’s true. Lucy Anne Hardesty’s mother had her purse stolen when she left the tearoom. The young thug broke her elbow. Ruined her golf game. Another friend was held up in the Dorchester parking lot.”

“I haven’t seen anything about a crime wave in the papers,” Josie said.

“Jake says that’s because the Dorchester is a major advertiser in the
St. Louis City Gazette
. Jake says they’re not going to report a rise in crime and risk the mall pulling its ads. Jake says …”

That was the other thing Josie hated about being married. The women quoted their husbands as if they didn’t have a thought in their heads. Yet Josie knew Alyce put Jake through law school.

“Jake says …”

“Hey! You! Stop!”

Josie saw one of the tough teenagers racing down the marble concourse, clutching something in his huge hands. The security guard made a flying tackle and brought the kid down hard. They rolled on the floor while another guard jumped on top of the young man. A third yelled, “Call nine-one-one.”

“Those security guards are good,” Alyce said.

“They’re stupid,” Josie said. “Subduing a suspect like that is the best way to get slapped with a lawsuit. The kid’s bleeding. The guards used excessive force. What did he take, anyway?”

“A biography of Donald Rumsfeld,” Alyce said. “Why would he steal a book when he could get it free at the library?”

“He isn’t going to read it,” Josie said. “He’s going to take it to another store in the chain and try to get a refund. If he can’t get cash, he’ll use the store credit to buy a CD. Where are his friends?”

“I don’t see them anywhere,” Alyce said. “I guess they took off.”

“Unless he was supposed to create a diversion for the real action,” Josie said. She heard a popping sound.

“Is that a car backfiring inside the mall?” Alyce said.

“It’s a gunshot,” Josie said, and pushed Alyce down under the bench. Two young men in short dreads were running for the stairs.

“Help me!” A young woman with wide dark eyes, four eyebrow rings and spiky pink hair staggered out of the athletic shoe store three doors away. Her face was bleached with shock. She could only talk in short gasps. “Two men. In dreads. They’ve got a gun. They held up our store.”

Six shoppers with cell phones simultaneously punched in 911.

Josie ran to the young woman’s side. Her name tag said
COURTNEY
.

“Are you OK, Courtney?”

“I’m fine,” she said, but her teeth were chattering. Josie picked a sweatshirt off a display rack and wrapped it around her. Josie saw blue smoke and smelled cordite. “What happened? Did they try to shoot you?”

“They shot the cash register. Two guys in Crips clothes came in.” Courtney stopped to catch her breath. “The tall one had a Glock nine. It looked like the ones on TV. He said he’d shoot me if I didn’t open the cash register. My hands were shaking so bad, I couldn’t hit the keys. He pushed me aside and blasted the register. He scooped up four hundred dollars. His friend grabbed three pairs of athletic shoes. The pair got away with a thousand dollars all together.”

“But you’re not hurt,” Josie said.

“No,” Courtney said. “Except my ears are ringing. Shit. I don’t want to cry.” Josie gave her a handful of tissues, and she dabbed angrily at her face, smearing her dark eye makeup. “I’ve never had a gun pointed at me before.”

Alyce poured a cup of coffee at the courtesy counter. It was black as old motor oil. Courtney took a sip and made a face, but she drank it.

“I can’t believe they’d hold up a mall shop in broad daylight,” Alyce said.

“It’s that freaking gangsta store,” Courtney said. “I don’t care if the manager did give me a raise. It’s not worth it. Today’s my last day.” She tore off her name tag and threw it on the counter.

Mall security and uniformed cops rushed through the store door. Josie and Alyce faded out the side entrance. They hadn’t seen the holdup and didn’t want to be questioned by the police.

“I need some coffee,” Alyce said. “Let’s go downstairs.”

They stopped at a kiosk for double lattes, then plopped down on the wrought-iron chairs in the mall’s indoor garden. A pink froth of flowers poured from terra-cotta pots. Sunlight streamed through the skylights in shimmering shafts. The fountain’s soft patter soothed them.

“This is such a beautiful mall,” Alyce said. “It’s a shame I’ll never come back.”

“Why? Because you saw two thefts? That goes on at every mall in America.”

“Not where I shop,” Alyce said.

“Yes, it does,” Josie said. “One million Americans shoplift every day. They boost roughly twenty thousand dollars a minute. I know the gangsta kids looked scary, but what really happened? A white woman stole a thousand dollars and so did some black kids.”

“No, you can’t explain it away, Josie,” Alyce said. “An old woman who shoplifts a scarf and an armed robbery are not the same. That holdup was frightening. Maybe I’m sheltered, but I like my life. I’ll never come back here again, not even for you.”

Josie shrugged. “OK, if that’s how you feel.”

“I do. My suburban neighbors can be crooks, but we don’t shoot people in malls.”

“You just hold them up on paper,” Josie said.

“That isn’t funny,” Alyce said.

It wasn’t. In another hour, more gunshots would shatter their lives. Nothing would ever be the same for Alyce and Josie.