Killer Pancake (19 page)

"What we're doing doesn't fall under the Freedom of Information Act, lady." Babs Braithwaite pressed her lips together.

"This..." She looked at me. What was I, exactly? "This... woman is going to be catering an important function for us this weekend. She's also operating a booth at our Playhouse Southwest benefit, and we can't have her - "

"When's your party?" the security fellow asked amiably as he made a no-nonsense gesture to me to walk forward in the direction of the department store offices.

"Why, why - " babbled Babs as she hustled along beside us, past the Japanese china decorated to look like English bone, " - tomorrow," she finished breathlessly. She slapped her purse down imperiously on a table displaying Waterford crystal.

An extremely large and undoubtedly expensive vase teetered, then, miraculously, straightened.

"It's Friday," Stan said wearily, without giving Babs so much as a glance. "I promise not to detain her more than twenty- four hours."

"But... this department store! What is going on - " Babs wailed, while I thought, Twenty-four hours? I don't think so.

Stan White nudged me through a door that said SECURITY and slammed it with a satisfactory thwack on Babs

Braithwaite's indignant face. A large, imposing man sat behind a large, imposing desk. I felt like the bad kid brought before the principal. Or, since the man who stared at me with such authoritative disdain seemed to be enthroned, make that a disobedient subject tossed in front of the king. From the scowl of the seated man, it was clear he was the one who decided whether the subject was thrown to the lions or was released to work again in the fields of the sovereign.

Stan White discreetly disappeared through a side door. I sat down and eyed the plaque on the desk: NICHOLAS R.

GENTILESCHI, DIRECTOR OF SECURITY. Then I took in the man himself. Fiftyish, Nick Gentileschi had a face whose extraordinary pallor was set off by flat jet-black eyes. His dark, receding hair was slicked to one side, except for an errant strand that flopped rakishy over his high-domed forehead. If his suit cost more than fifty dollars, he'd been cheated.

"Sit," he commanded, gesturing to a wooden chair. Without protest, I obeyed. When Gentileschi said nothing further, I glanced around his windowless office. Like the other still-to-be-refurbished Prince & Grogan offices, the paint on these walls was a disintegrating aquamarine. The department store seemed to care about its appearance everywhere but in its offices, as if prospective employees and would-be criminals weren't worth the trouble of a lovely decor. On one wall someone had mounted a white-framed painting with a plaque underneath: PRINCE & GROGAN, ALBUQUERQUE. The style of the flagship store was

Southwestem via Wonderland. The picture showed a multistoried pink stucco building complete with soaring columns, multistoried glass, and a bulging, gilded entrance. A Pueblo Indian wouldn't have recognized it as indigenous architecture, that was for sure.

"I didn't take anything, as you can see," I said defensively. "I was just looking around." I rubbed my arm. "Please call the police," I told Nick Gentileschi firmly. I wasn't really hurt. Nevertheless, I wanted to act miffed. I knew security people feared lawsuits like the plague. Maybe I should tell him Babs's story too, about somebody lurking behind the mirror in the women's dressing room. Then again, maybe not. I didn't want to confuse him. With an optimism I was far from feeling, I said, "I'm hoping we can get this all straightened out."

Nick Gentileschi raised his thin eyebrows and tapped a pencil on top of a camera on his desk. Vaguely I wondered if a hidden video camera had somehow monitored my not-so-surreptitious surveillance of the cosmetics counter. "The police?"

Gentileschi's voice grated like sandpaper. He dropped the pencil and began to jingle the keyring hanging from his belt. Then he turned his boxy, pale face sorrowfully toward the picture of the Albuquerque store. "She wants me to call the police." He grinned, revealing oversize, horselike teeth. "Now, that's one I haven't heard. You haven't stolen anything yet? You want to be cleared before things get worse? Or you have a friend at the sheriff's department?"

"Please, Mr. Gentileschi." Acting patient and sweet sometimes worked. I'd give it a whirl. "I know who you are, and Claire

Satterfield was a friend of mine - "

The thin eyebrows lifted. "Is that right? A friend of yours? You ever go to her apartment for a party? Where did she live exactly... ?

I sighed. "I didn't go to any parties, and I don't know where she lived, somewhere in Denver - " The heck with this. I wondered if I could remember my lawyer's phone number off the top of my head.

"Now, that's an interesting friendship when you don't know where someone lives. Claire was a party girl. Didja know that?

Or didn't you discuss that either in your... friendship?" He sneered the last word. My skin prickled.

"Who do you think you are, the FBI?" I said angrily. "Are you going to make a call or not?"

He opened a desk drawer, got out a form, and then carefully selected a pen. His gleaming black eyes regarded me greedily. "What's your name and occupation?"

I told him, and he took notes. Then he shifted his weight, smoothed his Grecian-Formula-16 hair with the palm of his hand, and said, "Now, you listen to me, Goldy Schulz, the supposed good friend of Claire Satterfield. We have our ways of knowing what's going on in this store. I know what you were trying to do. I just need to know the reasons. If your answers aren't satisfactory, I'll call the cops myself."

"I can assure you my reasons won't be satisfactory, since I don't even know what they were."

He blinked impassively and, pen poised over his form, waited for me to say more. When I did not, he sighed, put down the pen, picked up the telephone, and raised one eyebrow, as if he were calling my bluff. "Who should I call at the sheriffs department? Another friend?"

"Homicide Investigator Tom Schulz."

"I know Schulz. Do you know Schulz? I suppose you're going to tell me you're his sister or something."

I chose not to answer. He wouldn't believe me anyway. But to my relief he dialed the sheriffs department.

After a few preliminary murmurings, he managed, thank heaven, to get through to Tom. I watched with no small amount of satisfaction as the security chiefs features quickly registered first smugness ("Caught her acting suspicious by the cosmetics counter'), then discomfort ("No, she didn't touch any of the goods"), and finally embarrassment ("No, she didn't hurt anybody or take anything'). But the moment of discomfort passed just as quickly, and Gentileschi confirmed an appointment to meet with Tom later that afternoon. Then he thrust the phone across the desk at me. "He wants to talk to you," he said glumly.

When I took the receiver, I could hear Tom humming a dirgelike tune.

I said, "The great intellect - " He was not amused. "Look, I said not like hitting the demonstrator. That means not like being picked up for suspicious activity by department store security."

"This is not my fault," I said in a low voice. After all, I was just trying to learn something to help Julian. No matter what the security people said about my presence, I had not caused trouble in the store. "I wasn't doing anything."

"Goldy, please remember, we're trying to work with this guy."

"I wish you the very best of luck in that particular enterprise," I said crisply. "Listen, Tom, did you check out that other person I asked you about?" When Gentileschi leaned over just slightly to catch what I was saying, I turned in the wooden chair.

"Double oh seven, what would I do without you? Okay, Miss G. We're already looking into Hotchkiss. He has a record and he runs a cosmetics place. But I will definitely tell the guys to ream his behind. And don't worry about Nick, he's an old friend of ours. Watch out though, he's got a reputation with women."

I turned back to look at the polyester-clad, dyed-haired man across the desk from me. "Must say, Tom, I find that extremely hard to believe."

He chuckled. "Okay, look. I don't know when I'm going to have another chance to talk to you while you're down there. And

I've been hard to reach - "

"No kidding."

"But there is something you can do. Somebody I need you to talk to, a friend of yours. You think Dusty Routt is the one who might have hinted to Frances Markasian this Krill character was one of Claire's old boyfriends? He swore to us he didn't know

Claire. Maybe Markasian was baiting you with an idea of hers, see if you'd bite."

"I'm seeing Dusty at lunchtime, once I get out of prison." I tried to give Nick Gentileschi a prim look. He smirked.

"Well, the organization called People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals hasn't heard of Shaman Krill. And neither has the National Anti-Vivisection Society. Hell, even the SPCA swears they don't have a member named Krill. I don't know how long he's been an animal rights activist, but he hasn't been one long enough to earn him any kind of reputation. Our guys went to bring him in for more questioning, but he'd taken off from his demonstration buddies, and he wasn't at his apartment. And by the way, none of the demonstrators belong to any of those organizations. The legitimate organizations think Spare the Hares is some kind of wacko splinter group. Anyway. If you think Frances got the idea Krill was Claire's boyfriend from this Mignon sales associate named Dusty Routt, I'd sure like to hear about it."

"Why don't your guys just ask her?"

"We've already talked to Dusty Routt. At length. She swears she's never heard of Shaman Krill. So either she's lying or your friend Markasian got the info from somebody else, or got it wrong about who the boyfriend was. And speaking of your friend

Markasian - "

"You know that person in question is never going to tell me a thing. She'll protect her sources to the grave."

"Frances Markasian? Not tell a thing to my Goldy? Never." Tom chuckled again. "Feed her some doughnuts or something.

You know, the way they loosen folks' tongues by slipping 'em a few drinks? How about a little sodium Pentothal in your chocolate truffle cheesecake?"

I told him I'd do my best and hung up. Truth Serum tiramisu was not in my repertoire, but never mind.

"Well, Mrs. Schulz," said Nick Gentileschi with that equine grin that made my skin crawl. "Whadya know? Seems you were just the person I was looking for." Then, without a hint of apology for the fiasco of my in-store "bust" and "interrogation," he shuffled through an untidy stack of papers next to the camera and retrieved a check. After scanning it, he handed it over: the balance due Goldilocks' Catering on the Mignon banquet. I stuffed it in my skirt pocket. Gentileschi went on with, "Sorry we didn't get it to you sooner. Personnel gave it to me when we heard your assistant went to the hospital. As you know, we're in the middle of a major crime investigation here. An unexplained death doesn't help the accounts get paid."

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 assistant, 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 him- self against his desk. He looked at me for a moment and I squirmed.

Then he announced, "We're analyzing 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.