Killer Pancake Part 11

I fingered the check in my pocket. There was something slimy, something Uriah Heepish, about Nick Gentileschi that made me increasingly uneasy. He'd gone straight from badgering and prejudging me to acting as if we were pals. Still, it would be better to have the man on my side than not. And Tom said I should cooperate. "I wasn't lying when I came up here," I confessed. "I don't know why I was listening to what was going on at the counter, except that my a.s.sistant, the fellow who went to the hospital, is practically a member of our family. He is-was-Claire's boyfriend. He's devastated by her death, and I'm trying to help."

Nick Gentileschi crossed his arms and wriggled in his chair. "We all cared about Claire, you can count on that. She was a good girl. We've stepped up security in the parking lot. Since it looks like foul play, we're going to help the police in any way we can."

I said innocently, "Yes, my husband referred to that. I certainly hope you are doing everything to help the case." I rubbed my arm again. "Everything relevant, that is."

He glanced at the picture of the home office again, clearly trying to decide what to tell me. He didn't know how to balance secrecy with my irritation over being falsely arrested. There was an ego thing involved too. He was dying to show me what a big shot he was. I guess Albuquerque sent back good vibes, because he said, "Know what our biggest problem is, Mrs. Schulz?"

I shook my head sympathetically.

"Lawsuits." Bingo. He exhaled and moved around in his chair, making it squeak. "If Claire Satterfield's parents decide to sue because they think we have lax security in our parking lot, this store and this mall could go down the tubes all over again." He raised his chin and added proudly, "I've been in this place a long time. Served as security chief when it was Ward's. And believe me, being unemployed for four years was not something I want to repeat."

I hadn't been a psych major for nothing. In good Carl Rogers fashion, I said, "Not something you want to repeat."

Abruptly, Nick Gentileschi stood up and braced himself against his desk. He looked at me for a moment and I squirmed. Then he announced, "We're a.n.a.lyzing all the films of her sales, seeing if anyone suspicious turns up too often. But you figure"-he held out his large hands too close to my face and ticked off his points on his fingers-"someone had to know when she was going to be in the parking garage, that she was going to be there at all...."

Uncomfortable with his stare and his sudden closeness, I stood up too, and inched backward. "Figuring out Claire's whereabouts wouldn't have been too hard. Especially given that the banquet attracted so many high-rolling customers. Not to mention a few demonstrators."

"Let me tell you what the problem is," he said suddenly.

Another problem. I took up refuge against one of the smudged aquamarine walls. "Go ahead."

"We're not careful enough in this store," he said matter-of-factly. "Yeah, we have security. But we're not warning employees about people who come in with an ulterior motive. Take that guy you were talking to Schulz about."

I raised my eyebrows innocently, and he grinned. He said, "The one with the record and his own cosmetics place? His name's Reggie Hotchkiss. He's around us all the time. I mean, why? What's the big deal with our cosmetics counter? Guy went to jail in seventy for burning his draft card, destroying federal property. Convicted of trying to break into the CIA. He's into makeup now because his mommy founded a cosmetics company. Now that he's in his forties, Mr. Hotchkiss is suddenly interested in making money. Uh-huh. The guy's spying on us, I say. That's what I told Schulz. Could be more there, that's what we're going to discuss later," he concluded grimly, "after I escort you out of the store." He strode to the door and opened it.

"But ... I don't want to leave the store just now. What do you mean by 'more there'?"

He wagged a finger at me. "Remember Martha Mitch.e.l.l? Maybe you're too young. She wanted to get too involved in her husband's business too. A guy can't be Attorney General and tend to a wife who's always meddling."

"A guy can't be Attorney General if he's intent on breaking the law," I said sweetly.

Gentileschi's features hardened. "Mrs. Schulz, let's go."

As we walked back through the china department, I took a new tack. "I hope you told my husband the details of Hotchkiss's record, if he didn't know already."

"You bet."

"So tell me," I continued, "how are you going to a.n.a.lyze these films you were talking about? I mean, where are your cameras?"

He gave me a look that told me I'd lost any tactical advantage I'd had. He wagged a finger at me and said, "I don't think so."

"Oh, come on." We started our descent on the escalator. "I'm just wondering how you saw me. I mean, technology must have changed the way you do things over the years."

Nick Gentileschi puffed out his chest. "Things haven't changed that much, I can tell you that." He raised one of those eyebrows. "And we're talking some years." He gestured to a protruding area that framed the entrance to the store just inside the doors. The three-sided frame, which looked like a walled-in deck that had been painted the same color as the store walls, was about six feet wide and deep all the way around-up one side of the entrance, spanning the top of the door, and coming down the other side of the entrance. It faced the Mignon counter. About five feet up the horizontal section of the frame, a large vent extended the length of the front. "I can't tell you how the cameras work, but I can tell you how we used to do most of our security. See that boxed-in area across from the Mignon counter? They decided not to get rid of it when they renovated the store." I nodded and studied the large, protruding structure as we descended the escalator. I had never even noticed it before. "It's called a blind," Gentileschi went on. "We used to sit up there."

"A blind?" I repeated.

"Yeah, we'd sit in the blind. Like a duck blind, you know? The place where the hunters sit to watch for the ducks. You can see out, but whoever is hunted can't see in. Anyway, we'd look out through those vents to see what was going on in the store. We'd watch people. Say a woman picks something up, maybe a bottle of perfume. She wants to steal it but she isn't sure. She hawks all around...." He slitted his eyes and looked from side to side in imitation. "That's hawking. She could spend ten minutes trying to make up her mind whether she's gonna swipe it." He chuckled. "So say she finally doesn't lift it. That would really p.i.s.s us off. So we'd squirt her with Windex. Right through that vent on the blind!"

"Why, Nick," I said demurely, "I never imagined a security guy could get away with that kind of behavior."

We had reached the first floor. His warm, moist hand shook mine briefly. "You'd be surprised," he said. He winked roguishly.

And on that happy note, he headed off for men's suits.

"Gosh, what happened to you?" exclaimed Dusty when I returned to the Mignon counter. She was picking up the last of the plastic boxes and arranging them on a cart. "What were you doing?"

Harriet Wells, who was waiting on a black woman, tilted her head and smiled to acknowledge my return. Dusty and Harriet must have known I wasn't stealing anything. Why didn't they speak up in my defense when they saw Stan White leading me away? Maybe they were taught not to trust anyone. Given what had been happening around this mall lately, perhaps they were spooked by anyone acting odd in their domain.

"I wasn't doing anything," I told Dusty, "except trying to see if you were free. But you were talking to some guy." I gave her a naive, questioning look. "A tall blond guy? I mean, you looked as if you were very involved with him."

She laughed and waved this away. "Harriet did put me down to work through lunch. So if you come over and let me do your face, you can buy something for your sick friend and we can talk, all at the same time. Then if another customer comes along, if you don't mind, I can wait on him or her, and then get right back to you."

I was hungry but said that was fine, helped her stack the last of the plastic boxes on the cart, then asked if I could use the phone by the counter. She told me to go ahead, she'd be right back. Then she wheeled the cart away. I called Southwest Hospital and asked if Marla Korman had had her atherectomy yet. Someone at the nurses' station reported that Marla had not gone yet, and they did not know when she would be going. Typical.

I meandered over to the counter and listened to Harriet tell her customer that, believe it or not, she, Harriet Wells, had just had her sixty-fifth birthday, and just look at what Rejuvenation cream had done for her skin. The black woman put a ninety-dollar bottle of the stuff on her credit card.

"Here we are," said Dusty brightly. She nipped behind the counter, flipped through a file box, and retrieved a card.

As she was writing my name at the top, I slid onto one of the high stools on my side of the counter and said, "Tell me where the cameras are."

Startled, she looked up at me and giggled. Her cheeks colored. She gestured toward a silver half-globe protruding from the ceiling above the shoe department. "That's like, a one-way mirror. The camera sees out but you can't see in. It has pan, it has zoom, and it's watching us all the time. See, check this out." She ducked behind the counter and came up with a Prince & Grogan hag in one hand and three miniature jars of pink stuff in the other. "These are free samples of Rejuvenation, the new cream Mignon is pushing. I'm allowed to give three samples to each person, which includes me. And of course, it includes you. Anything more than that is considered employee stealing and I'll be out on my behind. Now, you can bet they're zooming in on me." She nodded at the silver half-globe and held up the three jars before putting them in the bag. "Okay," she said with a laugh, "now you've got your free stuff that ordinarily costs ninety bucks a bottle. Let's take a look at your face. Would you describe your skin as oily?"

Actually, I told her I wouldn't describe my skin as anything besides normal, because I just didn't pay that much attention to it. She frowned, and I remembered that when I was a doctor's wife, I'd worried about my complexion endlessly, and bought all kinds of stuff. I guess it was some kind of sublimation for worry about what was going on in the rest of my life. Your skin is under relentless attack, the ads screamed, and you have to fight back. No kidding. Needless to say, the gumption I'd eventually developed hadn't come from a bottle. In the money-scrimping years that followed my divorce, the only thing I used on my face was sunscreen. As far as makeup went, I hadn't missed a thing. And certainly the last thing I wanted to go back to was my endless trips to the counters of La Prairie, Lancome, and Estee Lauder, seeking the best concealer to cover my black eyes and bruised cheeks, looking for someone who hadn't waited on me before, hadn't seen the damage the Jerk liked to inflict.

"Goldy? h.e.l.lo? You in there? What kind of cleanser are you using now?"

Pulled back to reality, I replied that I used soap.

"Soap?" echoed Dusty incredulously. "Real soap? Soap-soap?" When I nodded, she persisted, "What brand of soap-soap?"

"Whatever's on sale at the grocery store."

Dusty couldn't help it, she put her hand on her chest and began to giggle. "That must be how you got to be friends with Frances Markasian! You know, that reporter you introduced me to?"

"The woman in red who was here earlier, right? The one I introduced you to yesterday?"

"Yeah, spending lots of money, I couldn't believe it. She sure has changed her tune. Maybe she has a new boyfriend. Did you see that article she wrote on cosmetics for the Mountain Journal! I went home and looked it up, to see if it was the same person. I swear, she must be the queen of the skinflints. She wrote that people should just use Cetaphil, witch hazel, and drugstore moisturizer. Can you imagine?"

"I must have missed that issue. When was it?"

Before she could reply, Harriet, who had been writing in the large ledger, closed it with a firm slap and came over.

"I remember one time," she said in her honeylike voice, certainly not a voice I would a.s.sociate with someone in her late sixties, "when we had a widow come in. She was fairly young, and all she'd ever used was drugstore makeup." She shook her head at me beneficently, as if to say, You see, being a soap-user isn't the stupidest thing we've ever seen here. "That poor woman ... it just brings tears to my eyes to remember." I looked at Harriet's eyes. They were wet, all right. "Of course, her skin was a mess-too dry in one place, too oily in another. Her foundation didn't match her skin tone, she wore bright green eyeshadow, and her cheeks were so caked with blush, she looked like she had scarlet fever. I sold her our complete line. She had the insurance money, you see, and she could do whatever she wanted. A thousand dollars' worth of cosmetics I sold to that woman, and she was so happy! In less than an hour." She reached for a tissue and dabbed at her eyes.

"I'll bet you just loved that, Harriet," Dusty commented.

Harriet ignored this. "Oh, it was wonderful," she said to me. "Really touching, what I did for that woman. She looked beautiful when she walked out of here. She looked perfect."

Down the counter, a woman began to try out the perfume testers. She was wearing what looked to be some kind of designer sundress with big black squiggles on a white background. Below her elaborately streaked and curled hair, gold necklaces dripped around her neck and a gold bracelet with bells tinkled when she shook her wrist with each new perfume sample. Dusty put down her pen and moved toward her. Catapulted out of a post-green-eyeshadow reverie, Harriet took two quick steps in Dusty's direction, put a hand on her shoulder, and snapped a loud "Excuse me!" before pushing past her to be the first one to stand in front of the Woman with Bucks.

"Whoa," I said when Dusty returned, crestfallen. "What was that all about?"

"Don't worry," said Dusty bitterly. "I have Harriet's pump prints all up my back. And I'm the one who has to worry about the sales figures." She gestured to the big blue volume in which Harriet had been writing. "Every time I look at the ledger book, I break out in a sweat."

"Does she walk over everybody that way?"

"If you're in her way," murmured Dusty as she held up a bottle of foundation to my cheek to see if it matched my skin tone. Shaking her head, she clinked the bottle back into its drawer and picked out another. "You know this Rejuvenation we're selling?" I nodded. She continued, "Our sales goal on it is twenty-three hundred dollars a month per sales a.s.sociate." She pointed to the ledger. "Today's the third of July and Harriet has already sold two thousand dollars of the stuff this month. That's what, eighteen total hours of sales time? Incredible. Of course, she says the most awful things to customers." Dusty's smile was wicked. "Claire and I figured Harriet must be at least eighty by the end of the day, since she gets older each minute when she's trying to sell anti-aging cream."

I unscrewed the lid on a jar of thick cream, then used the little plastic applicator to spread a dollop of the viscous, sweet-smelling stuff on the back of my hand. I said mildly, "Was Harriet jealous of Claire?"

The wicked smile on Dusty's lips traveled to her eyes. "Claire had one client, a man who's a weird-genius kind of guy, who spent a lot of money. You mentioned him, he was here before-a thin, tall blond man? Anyway, never mind that it was his wife's money, this guy spent it like crazy, buying stuff for his wife, I guess, but always only from Claire. He wouldn't even buy a tube of lipstick from one of the rest of us. He'd hang around here like a loyal dog, waiting until her shift. And you know how Claire was. She'd flirt and bat her eyes and just have the best old time. Or maybe you never saw her do that.... Hold still, I'm going to use this cleanser on you."

I sat motionless while Dusty used two cotton b.a.l.l.s to spread luscious-smelling cream over my cheeks. It felt divine. If my stomach hadn't been growling, I would have been certain I was in heaven.

"Anyway," she went on, "Claire would just make this guy feel like a million dollars. 'You're not really goin' to buy that too! Y'goin' t'be broke!'" Dusty's imitation of Claire's Australian accent was dead-on. "So. Pretty soon the wife, who spends a lot of money here herself, comes in with her husband to see why her husband's developed such an enthusiastic interest in cosmetics all of a sudden."

"When was all this going on?" I asked, trying to keep still as Dusty smeared lime-scented toner over my face. I slid my glance sideways to see if Harriet was having any luck with Mrs. Got-Rocks in the black and white dress.

"Watch out!" Dusty cried sharply.

Startled, I fell off the stool where I was perched. "Huh? I was just looking to see how Harriet was doing."

"I don't want to get this stuff in your eye! You don't know what could happen!"

Dusty had become so suddenly fl.u.s.tered that I sat back slowly on the stool and opened my eyes wide. "I'm fine. Look. I love the feel of this stuff you put on me-"

Dusty took a deep breath and began to write on my ticket, or whatever it was. When I asked her what she was doing, she informed me that this was my client card. She'd record everything she sold me so that next time she could just look it up when I came in and needed new blush or whatever.

"I have to tell you honestly, Dusty, I don't think there's much chance that I'll be spending a lot of time or money here...."

"Okay, close your eyes and keep them closed. I'm going to do your moisturizer." She didn't seem to hear me.

I obeyed. "So what happened with this man and his wife and Claire?"

Dusty finished with the moisturizer and began to dab on something else. From the position of her fingers, I guessed it was concealer. I didn't dare open my eyes though, for fear of another eruption.

"I think Claire and the man had an affair. He was, like, smitten. I mean, the guy seemed crazed. Obsessed. I do know they broke up later, because she told me. But he still came around-you know, hanging back where he figured we wouldn't see him. He would skulk through Shoes, watching her. I mean, who could miss him? He's so tall, and that blondish-white hair makes him look kind of young and real cute. Okay, now I'm doing your foundation." More scented stuff was liberally spread over my face. Pat, pat, pat. "Never tug or pull on your face," Dusty warned sternly. "That's what causes premature loosening of the skin around the eyes."

Noted. Keeping my eyes closed, I inquired, "So what happened to the skulking guy? Why was he here this morning?"

"Well, I don't know about this morning, because he was just asking a bunch of disgusting questions, like what had happened to Claire's body and stuff like that. Okay, I'm doing your eyes. Hold still."

While Dusty worked on my eyelids, I was reminded of those X-ray technicians who tell you to hold still and not breathe. Then they go behind a foot-thick wall and zap you. What happens if you breathe? Do you go radioactive, or do you just screw up the X ray?

"All right," said Dusty. "Now blush."

It took me a second to realize that wasn't a command. "Can I move? What happened to the guy?"

"Don't talk or I won't get this on straight. Well. As far as the affair goes, a while back the guy's wife started coming in just to ask if her husband had been here. I mean, you talk about screwed up. You can look in the mirror now."

I did as ordered. I looked different, that was for sure. No more smudges under my eyes from lack of sleep; lots of radiant cheek tone that made me look either acutely embarra.s.sed or much more physically active than would be justified by a short daily regimen of yoga. Most prominent and startling were the black eyeliner and brown eyeshadow. I no longer looked like a caterer; I resembled an Egyptian queen. Make that a promiscuous Egyptian queen.

"Wow, Dusty," I gushed. "You're amazing! This guy who was watching Claire ... What was his name, do you remember?"

Dusty batted her eyes at me and then held them open wide. I had the uncomfortable feeling that she was vamping me. But the eye movements were apparently some kind of universal signal of what she wanted me to do. She needed to apply my mascara. When I obeyed, she continued. "His name was Charles Braithwaite. Don't you know the Braithwaites? Our bio cla.s.s went over to his lab once on a field trip. Look up now, and hold still."

"Yes, I know them," I said carefully. "Babs Braithwaite invaded my life a few weeks ago, and it hasn't been pleasant." In fact, I thought with a shiver, Babs was making me feel distinctly uneasy, the way she kept interjecting her presence into Julian's and my life.

Dusty said, "The Braithwaites are, like, mega-rich. I mean, they live in this huge place in the country club. But I guess Charles Braithwaite fell in love with Claire. Like the b.u.mper sticker, you know? Scientists do it unexpectedly. Okay, look out, I'm going to do your lipstick." She giggled. "Nectarine Climax. How do you like having that on your lips?"

"Sounds ... intriguing. You went on a field trip to Braithwaite's lab? What did he do in the lab?" My head was spinning.

Dusty dotted my lips with a Q-Tip loaded with what resembled cooked pumpkin. She spread it all around, then ordered me to blot. Only when she'd put the cap back on Nectarine Climax did she answer, "Oh, you know, he has that big greenhouse. Haven't you seen it? I never wrote up my report on the trip because I ... left the school. But anyway. Last I heard, Charles was working on roses or something."

I looked in the mirror. Nefert.i.ti blinked back. My eyes, dark-lined and shadowed the color of burnt toast, had a hard time concealing astonishment. Roses or something. Experimenting. The way you experiment to produce a blue rose, like the one I'd found on the garage floor near where Claire was. .h.i.t? I furrowed my newly powdered brow, squinted at the smorgasbord of brightly packaged products lined up on the shiny counter, and asked Dusty to sell me some hand cream for my friend in the hospital. While I dug through my wallet looking for the emergency hundred-dollar bill, she picked out a jar for eighty bucks. Twenty dollars wasn't going to get me too far in an emergency.

"Please, Dusty," I begged, "don't you have something less expensive?"

She shrugged, as if I were about to make the biggest mistake of my life. "The smallest jar is sixty."

"I'll take it." While she rummaged below the counter for the sixty-dollar size, I asked nonchalantly, "What about a guy named Shaman Krill? Did Claire go out with anybody by that name, before or after her fling with Charles B.?"

Dusty plunked a shiny box down on the counter. "Shaman Krill? Never heard of him. What does he look like?"

I handed her the hundred-dollar bill. "He's an animal rights' activist with a dark ponytail, gold earring, short stature, and big att.i.tude. Sound familiar?"

She wrinkled her nose. "Are you kidding? He sounds disgusting. I never saw anybody like that. And Claire would never have gone out with some weirdo." She pressed b.u.t.tons on the cash-register terminal to ring up my purchase, lifted the jar and the receipt-for the cameras, I guessed-and gave me the bag.

"Thanks, Dusty."

She tilted her head and gave me a sweet smile. "Come back soon. It's fun to have somebody to talk to."

Time to leave the store, time to find Julian, time to go see Marla. Time to see if I could get my friend-who'd-just-had-a-heart-attack to smile at my freshly minted face. And yet something was holding me back. I couldn't go just yet, and besides, Julian was still doing the chamber brunch. The paper bag crackled in my hand as I surveyed the store, the store that twinkled with bright lights and glittering decor and mirrors I hated to look in. Mirrors. I looked up to the second story. Not an hour ago I had seen Babs Braithwaite leaning half-dressed over the escalator and claiming somebody was back there, Nick had talked about surveillance from the blinds-that-were-like-duck-blinds. Claire had been helping Nick; Claire thought she was being watched. Now Babs thought she was being watched. I dashed up the moving steps. Back where? Behind the dressing room mirrors? Was there somebody back there?

On the second floor, I knew better than to look up to locate the camera or glance back and forth to check on the presence of security people, called "hawking" by Nick Gentileschi. That would alert them to my attentions, and I certainly didn't want to have them watching me again. Even a paranoid has real enemies, Henry Kissinger was reputed to have said. I lifted a hanger with a hot-pink and yellow bikini and headed confidently in the direction of the dressing room.

In the recessed entry, a short hallway to the right led to the mirrored rooms. I walked along the row of dressing rooms. One was occupied by a woman trying on a suit while attempting to calm her recalcitrant toddler. The rest were empty. Was this just more evidence of Babs acting hysterical? She'd seemed so convinced that someone was watching her. And not just a camera either. But where could you watch someone from?

At the end of the hallway of dressing rooms was one of those expensive imitation rubber plants and a rack of bathing suits apparently waiting to be returned to the sales floor. Behind the rack and almost invisible because it was painted the same color as the walls was a door. Without hesitation I dropped the suit, pulled the rack out of the way, and tried the door handle: locked. Now, where would Nick Gentileschi, that cliche of a dime-store cop, put the spare key, if there was such a thing?

I thought back to my visit to his office. He had been wearing a keyring. But there had to be more than one key. Where would the department store keep a key to an area behind the ladies' dressing room?

Wait. I had seen something the day before, when I was trying to find the right person with my check. There had been a key box on the aquamarine office wall belonging to Lisa, the lady perplexed by the notion of accounts payable. I veered off toward the offices. What would Tom say if he knew I intended to filch a key? Well, I would see if I could get the key and find out what Babs was talking about with somebody back there. Then I would worry about Tom.

The store offices were virtually deserted, probably because of the food fair. To the one young woman in accounts receivable, I asked knowledgeably, "Is Lisa here? I talked to her yesterday about accounts payable." I touched my Food Fair badge, as if that made me official. "She told me to come back today."

The young woman shrugged. "You can check her office."