Murder in Store

NO TEARS FROM THE WIDOW …

“Preston is dead.”

There was a flicker of something in her eyes. “What happened?” she asked; then without missing a beat, added, “Did he choke to death on his ego?”

“They don’t know yet. Some kind of poison. Probably slipped into his vitamins.”

For several seconds there was dead silence. Then she started to giggle. The giggles escalated into laughter …

PRAISE FOR
THE MYSTERIES OF D.C. BROD
featuring P.I. Quint McCauley …

MURDER IN STORE

“Brod does an excellent job. The book is fast-moving, with believable characters, surprising circumstances that all lead to a satisfying ending. You will like this one!”

—SSC Booknews

“Entertaining … effective.”

—
Statesboro Herald
(GA.)

ERROR IN JUDGMENT

“A wry appealing P.I., many well-observed characters, plus a sharp, suspenseful plot make this a noteworthy tale of corruption and murder.”

—Jack Early, Edgar-nominated author of
Donato and Daughter

“Well-plotted … solid.”

—
Kirkus Reviews

Diamond books by n C. Brod

ERROR IN JUDGMENT

MURDER IN STORE

MURDER
IN STORE

D.C. BROD

For

 

John and Ruth Cobban

 

1

 

T
HE WOMAN SEATED
across the desk from me was the image of grace under pressure. From her style of dress to the way she held her head, she registered icy elegance and poise. The fur coat tossed over the back of her chair could have come from the salon in the upscale store her husband owned. She wore a cream-colored dress that looked like cashmere and a blue silk scarf draped around her neck, secured at her right shoulder with a silver brooch. Her hair was so blond it was almost white, and she wore it full and swept back from her face. You really had to be sure of your looks to pull that off. She was, and she did. She sat there, hands neatly folded over an alligator clutch, looking like a monarch reviewing her court, instead of a shoplifter staring down the head of security.

She crossed one slender leg over the other and glanced at the nameplate on my desk. Then she smiled a little and broke the silence. “What does the C stand for?”

Thanks to this woman, I was doing a mental calculation of what my unemployment check would be, and she was playing games.

I didn’t respond. Still smiling, she said, “What happens now?”

The evidence lay on my desk. A conscientious floor detective had stopped the lady as she tried to leave Hauser’s with a pair of fifteen-dollar panties stuffed in the pocket of her silver-fox coat. I looked at the white silk Christian Diors and felt vaguely embarrassed, wishing she had lifted

a necklace or a scarf. I also felt more than a little irritated. I had better things to do than waste my time with a wealthy neurotic who might wind up costing me my job. The detective who picked her up was new and hadn’t recognized the infamous Mrs. Hauser.

She had introduced herself and he responded by saying, “Right. And I’m Dirty Harry.” It started to get ugly then and they were drawing a crowd when another store detective sized up the situation and hustled her up to my office.

I made a mental note to brief new employees on this woman whose idea of great sport was lifting items out of her husband’s store.

I lit a cigarette and pushed the pack across my desk, offering her one.

She hesitated, then shook her head. “Well?” she said, a bit impatient.

I felt like a chess player with his king exposed while she waited for me to play it safe and protect him by castling. I’m so predictable. I moved my king back and played my strongest piece.

“We called your husband. He’s coming to get you,” I said. “I guess that’ll be it.” I figured that would be it for me too, but I kept that observation to myself.

Watching her silently calculate, feeling for solid ground, I realized that part of the irritation I was feeling centered on the realization that my first encounter with Preston Hauser would be over this embarrassing situation. And history can attest that powerful men don’t handle embarrassment well. They have been known to react by hacking off the head of the closest dispensable person.

In fact, it was beginning to look as though the only one who wouldn’t be embarrassed over this incident was Diana Hauser. For a woman who had to be less than twenty-five, she had an uncommon amount of poise and composure. I wondered if her thoughts were as cool and collected as her

demeanor. She began to drum her sculptured nails on her alligator purse. Probably not.

“I wish you hadn’t called him,” she said, turning to look at the gray sky outside the window. I would have given a lot to know what was going on inside her head at that moment, but before I had much time to speculate, she turned back to me, composure regained. “May I call you Quintus?”

“Quint,” I said, adding, “It’s hard to keep something like this from the guy who owns the place.”

She hesitated, mouth poised in a retort, then said, “Quint, can’t I just pay for them?” She gestured toward the panties.

I shook my head. “It’s not that simple,” I said, stubbing out the half-finished cigarette.

“I’m not a common shoplifter, you know.”

I had to agree with that. “Does that make you an uncommon shoplifter then? Of the species kleptomaniac?”

“You don’t know what it’s like. If you did you wouldn’t be making jokes.” She paused and then continued, “We all have our dark tendencies. Most people are pretty adept at hiding them. I guess I’m not.” It was as if she were speaking to herself or at least to no one in particular.

I nodded, leaning forward in my chair, about to ask her to tell me what it
was
like when she said, “I’ll take that cigarette now.”

I lit it for her. “You know there are people you can talk to about your problem, Mrs. Hauser,” I prodded.

“Diana,” she instructed me. “I’ve got the best analyst money can buy. She thinks I’m crying out for attention.” A small laugh. “Can you believe that?” She sighed and looked out the window.

We both heard Preston Hauser’s booming voice outside the door, ordering someone to have his car brought around. Diana immediately dropped her cigarette in the ashtray on my desk.

When Hauser entered a room you felt as much as you

saw him. He was several inches taller than my six feet and much more massive. The rumors I had heard about his glory days as a college gridiron star were probably true. I knew the man was close to sixty, but he looked ten or fifteen years younger. His gray hair was thinning only slightly, and if he suffered from middle-aged spread, he did a good job of hiding it

“Let’s go home,” he said, taking her arm.

As he turned to lead her toward the door, he saw the glowing cigarette in the ashtray. He looked at Diana, but before she could speak, I picked up the butt and inhaled on it deeply, wondering if Hauser had noticed the faint blush of lipstick on the filter.

Hauser studied the woman at his side. Her expression remained unchanged. Then, for the first time since entering the room, he acknowledged my presence. “Thank you, ah, McCauley, I appreciate your discretion,” and led his wife from the room, gripping her arm like he was showing her the way to her cell. She didn’t look back.

I forced myself to relax. The ax hadn’t fallen yet, but that shouldn’t have surprised me, given the hierarchy in an organization such as this one. People like Preston Hauser pay other people the big bucks to bother with employee matters, especially the unpleasant ones. His words of appreciation didn’t mean much. News of Diana Hauser’s afternoon crime spree was, no doubt, already the leading coffee-break topic. My discretion or lack of it wouldn’t make any difference.

I was speculating on how the story might be embellished by closing time when Frank Griffin marched purposefully into my office. Frank did everything purposefully. I think he believed that if you act with enough assurance and with the right amount of bravado, it doesn’t matter whether or not you know what you’re doing. People will think that you do. Actually, with Frank, I suspected that about eighty

percent of the time he did know what he was doing. That estimate combined with his no-holds-barred approach made him pretty formidable. And he needed to be. Griffin was store manager and, more than Preston Hauser, he ran the place.

Griffin shook his head slowly and sat down across from me. “Well, Quint, what are we going to do here? Issue a picture of Diana Hauser to new floor detectives with instructions not to apprehend her even if she saunters out the door sporting a diamond tiara?”

“I’m hoping that Mr. Hauser can appeal to her sense of fair play. Where’s the challenge in shoplifting in your own store?”

Griffin allowed himself a brief smile. “Can you keep this thing quiet, Quint?”

“I trust my people, but there were others who saw her being escorted to security.” I shrugged. “I can’t account for them.”

“I know,” he said. “Do what you can, though.” He stood. “I don’t want to read this in the newspaper tomorrow. Art has a statement prepared,” he said, referring to Hauser’s publicity man. “If asked, we’re calling this an unfortunate misunderstanding on the part of the detective.”

I nodded. “Those silk underwear have a way of sliding off their displays and into the pockets of fur coats. Like metal to magnets.”

Griffin ignored me. “I don’t want word of this getting out, and if there is a slip, I want to know where it came from.” He gave me what I would classify as a meaningful look and added, “With any luck, nobody will lose his job over this.”

He got up and before he turned to leave said, “I think Preston’s father was negligent in teaching his son one of the fundamental concepts of life.” He shook his head. “Flashy, crazy women. You’re supposed to fool around

with them. You’re not supposed to marry them.”

Diana Hauser certainly was flashy and was probably a little bit crazy, but she was also something of an intriguing puzzle. So even though I was worried about the job, I had trouble pushing her from my mind. Did she think these thefts of hers through or did she act impulsively? It was hard to tell whether Hauser was more irritated with me or with his wife. What kind of relationship did I catch a glimpse of this afternoon? And what kind of work could a washed-up security man find?

I’d been head of security at Hauser’s for almost a year now, and although it wasn’t the most exciting, glamorous job in the world, it was all right. I’d begun to realize that hopping from job to job, never letting myself get settled didn’t mean I could put off getting older. You wind up just as old, but with nothing to show for it. I don’t remember telling anyone as a kid that when I grew up I wanted to make the world safe for gourmet pepper mills and Calvin Klein underwear, but the job at Hauser’s wasn’t bad. I had my share of life in the fast lane when I was on the police force. I sort of welcomed the slower pace and the occasional monotony at the store. I’d prefer to stick around awhile.

Consequently, it wasn’t until I was driving to the apartment on Chicago’s near north side that I managed to push Hauser thoughts from my mind. And it was the going home that did it.

I liked going home. Since I had moved in with Maggie six months ago, life was better. A lot better. I’d finally realized that being alone was a high price to pay for total freedom, which only meant that if you choked to death eating a burrito on Friday night, your passing wouldn’t be noticed until Monday morning. Maggie had changed that for me. Life was better and easier and I had gladly traded freedom for commitment.

“Dammit.” I banged the steering wheel with a clenched fist. Parking spaces on the near north side were almost as hard to come by as World Series tickets, and the space that was invariably empty because it only
looked
like reserved parking was occupied by a red sports car. I cursed again and drove around for fifteen minutes before finding a space and then had to walk four blocks to the apartment

Maggie was pouring two glasses of wine when I walked into the kitchen through the rear entrance. She had read my mind. “Just what I needed,” I said, reaching for one of them. She pulled the glass back from my reach. “Sorry. Not for you.” She looked into the dining room. I followed her gaze. The table was piled high with textbooks, law journals, and law reviews. A young man, polished and scrubbed, was feigning immersion in one of the tomes.

“Third year?” I asked.

Maggie nodded. “He was brilliant in moot court today.” “Can’t ask for more than that.” “We’ve got to talk, McCauley.” I felt a vague apprehension at her use of my last name. “Bedroom?” I asked, indicating our usual conference room.

“Yeah, I’ll be there in a second,” Maggie said and went off to give one of the wineglasses to the young Perry Mason.

Once in the bedroom I couldn’t help but notice the suitcase in the middle of the bed. It was mine, and it contained my clothes and my camera. Maggie stood in the doorway, waiting for my response. She looked, as always, relaxed and comfortable. She fit into any situation with little effort. Whether competing with fellow law students for the best grades or making love, Maggie was at home. If you were lucky, she pulled a little bit of you into that universe, and you felt like you belonged even if you never had before. She walked over and placed a hand on either side of my face. I felt like someone had just knocked the

wind out of me and I prayed to whomever might be listening that this was the point where she giggled and said she was only teasing. But it wasn’t.

She locked her eyes onto mine and said, “We knew this wasn’t a permanent thing. Neither of us wanted that.”

She was so bright and beautiful and alive that I couldn’t imagine not wanting her, or her thinking I didn’t. “Speak for yourself.” I shook my head and pulled away. Too late to pour my heart out now. “Forget I said that. Yeah, I guess it was coming to this.” Is this, I wondered, the same instinct that makes people want to die with dignity? “Let me just make sure I’ve got everything, and then I’ll be out of here.”

“Sure,” Maggie said. She closed the door as she left the room.

I sat on the bed, sinking into the thick, down comforter. I knew Maggie well enough to understand there was no discussing this. When she made up her mind about something, she was immovable. I had to admit things weren’t quite as good lately as they had been at first. You settle in a little and maybe some of the mystery and newness wears off, but what’s left is good too. At least I thought it was.

I looked at myself in the full-length mirror on the door. I was in pretty good shape for a man pushing middle age. Maybe there was a little more gray in the brown. And maybe my laugh lines were starting to look like squint lines. And the mustache—maybe its time had come and gone. Hell. I’d had it for twenty years. Then again, maybe I just wasn’t enough for an attractive, intelligent woman of twenty-three who had handsome pre-lawyer types bounding after her like the puppies they were. Maybe she liked puppies. What did I know?

Maggie’s cat, Brandeis, watched me from the windowsill, eyes half-closed, wearing an expression that could only be described as smug.

“You won, asshole,” I said, taking little comfort in the

knowledge that the object of his disdain—the competition—would not be removed, only replaced.

I paused in the dining room doorway on my way out. Maggie and her friend looked up. “Maybe I’ll see you around,” I said to Maggie. I turned to leave, then looked back at the young man. “Do you own that red Mazda parked next to the dumpster?”