“Yes, but something will turn up,” I replied.
We were spending our Sunday morning in the mall at Sherman Oaks continuing our search for a fabulous handbag and, once again, hadn’t found anything we loved—or even liked. When we’d done this at the Galleria a few days ago Marcie had suggested I was being a crab-ass about the whole thing. She’d been right—Marcie was almost always right—so today I was making an effort to be upbeat and positive.
“Are you okay?” Marcie asked. “You’ve been acting weird all day.”
So much for the new me.
“Let’s try Macy’s,” I said.
We’d already checked out the Coach and Michael Kors stores, Bloomingdales, and a few other shops. Macy’s was our last hope.
“I met this really annoying guy,” I said, as we made our way through the crowd. Everything was already decorated for Christmas and, apparently, lots of people were getting a jump on their shopping.
“Was he at least good looking?” Marcie asked.
“Totally handsome,” I said. “A lawyer. Liam Douglas.”
“Sexy name,” she said, nodding. “Why was he so annoying?”
I replayed my conversation with Liam in my head and, really, except for the fact that he’d come at me all wrong about my clients and their dog’s birthday party, he’d seemed okay. Well, better than okay—but that wasn’t the point.
“He made me so mad. I couldn’t believe how upset I got. Then he totally backed off and apologized,” I said. “I’ll never see him again, anyway.”
“Too bad. Sounds like you two had some sparks flying,” Marcie said. “What are you doing for Thanksgiving?”
Under normal circumstances I would have welcomed a change in topic, but remembering my mom’s Thanksgiving Day dinner threatened to throw me into crab-ass-mode again.
“Mom’s having people over,” I said.
“Oh. Sorry.”
Marcie knew about my mom.
“I have an event that day, an afternoon thing. Maybe it will run long and I won’t have to go,” I said.
Of course, I’d never hear the end of it if I didn’t show up and threw off Mom’s seating chart.
“Are you hanging out with your family?” I asked.
“Mom hasn’t told me what we’re doing yet, but we’ll probably go to my grandma’s again,” Marcie said.
Marcie’s family was awesome. Her mom was terrific. Honestly, I was always a bit envious.
I thought about Veronica. At least my mom wasn’t in prison—and even that didn’t make me feel better about my own mother.
My attitude was in a death-spiral, I decided, as we entered Macy’s. If I didn’t find a handbag here to lift my spirits, desperate measures would have to be taken.
For a couple of months now I’d been putting cash away in my underwear drawer to buy myself something fabulous—I mean, something more fabulous than the fabulous things I often bought myself. What I had in mind was a Louis Vuitton tote. It was an iconic bag offering a host of refinements—from the redesigned interior that featured fresh textiles and heritage details, to the lining in a selection of bright shades that lent a vivid pop of color to the timeless Monogram canvas.
Yes, that was the description on their website.
Yes, I’d memorized it.
How could I not?
I didn’t dare mention any of this to Marcie, though. She’d try to talk me out of buying it—right now, at least. She’d explain how Christmas was approaching, how I hadn’t had my job performance review at L.A. Affairs that would guarantee me a permanent position there, that the tote cost over three grand, and blah, blah, blah.
Not that I didn’t appreciate Marcie’s concern for my finances.
Anyway, if I didn’t find a handbag I loved—and soon—I was going to break down and buy the Louis Vuitton tote.
When Marcie and I got to the handbag department at Macy’s we did our usual search, scoping out the purses in the display cases. We made one lap, then looked at each other and sighed. No words were necessary. This trip had been a total bust.
“Don’t you have to get to work?” Marcie asked, glancing at her cell phone.
As if today hadn’t been yucky enough, I still had to face several hours at Holt’s this afternoon.
Oh, crap.
* * *
The generations-old tradition at Holt’s Department Store nixed displaying Christmas decorations until after Thanksgiving—one of the very few retail establishments that celebrated Christmas during the actual Christmas season. Nothing went up until Black Friday.
I didn’t know if our customers appreciated the store’s we’re-Christmas-purists attitude but they sure as heck seemed to like the Thanksgiving Stuff-It sale, I realized as I squeezed through the crowded aisles heading for the employee breakroom to clock-in.
The corporate marketing department had come up with the idea of giving customers a free shopping tote and granting them a twenty percent discount on everything they could stuff into it from our seasonal section. The shelves were filled with canned and boxed foods—gravy, vegetables and, of course, stuffing—and some decorator items.
Thankfully, none of the employees working in that department had been required to dress up in turkey costumes.
When I reached the breakroom, several employees were already lined up and ready to clock-in, while others who’d come in earlier in the day were seated at the tables eating. I stowed my handbag and got in line. Bella came in and went straight to the refrigerator.
“Is it your lunch break?” I called.
“I’m checking on my food,” she told me, as she grabbed her lunch sack from the refrigerator. “Nobody better try to take my string cheese again—or anything else. I’m keeping watch.”
This seemed like overkill to me, but I didn’t say anything. I’d seen Bella angry a few times. No way was I commenting.
I glanced at the schedule hanging by the time clock as I punched in my employee code and pressed my finger to the scanner, and saw that I was assigned to the housewares department. I’d worked there before, and while I didn’t love it, I knew that my assignment for the night could have been worse.
Things can always be worse at Holt’s.
When I left the breakroom I spotted Sandy straightening T-shirts on a display table in the women’s department. Not wanting to miss an opportunity to delay the actual start of my shift, I walked over.
“I think Bella’s losing it,” I said, and glanced toward the breakroom.
Sandy nodded. “She’s been checking on her lunch over and over, all day.”
“It is really crappy to steal somebody’s food,” I said, and picked up a T-shirt so it would look like I was working. I wasn’t, of course.
“What are you doing for Thanksgiving?” Sandy asked.
Not this again.
“My mom is having people over,” I said.
“Moms always decide what everybody is doing for the holidays,” Sandy said, folding another shirt. “My mom said my boyfriend could have dinner with us, but he won’t.”
“Why not?” I asked, and managed to keep the okay-that’s-crappy tone out of my voice.
“He doesn’t want to meet my family,” Sandy explained.
I hate that guy. Sandy deserves somebody so much better.
I drew a breath, forcing myself not to get upset and said, “That must have hurt your feelings.”
“Well, yeah, kind of,” Sandy said, then gave me a bright smile. “But he’s really nice to me most of the time.”
Good grief.
“There’s no roll-over plan in relationships,” I told her.
Sandy looked lost.
“Just because he’s nice to you most of the time,” I said, “it doesn’t make up for him being crappy to you at other times.”
She still looked lost.
I gave up.
The aisles were crowded as I snaked my way toward the housewares department, which was also jammed with shoppers. Wading in and straightening stock—while avoiding eye contact with customers—seemed like more than I could manage at the moment. Besides, I had important personal business to attend to and, really, why shouldn’t I take care of it on company time?
I cut down another aisle and slipped through the double doors into the stockroom. It was quiet, except for the dreadful music the store always played which was thankfully interrupted from time to time by an announcement over the public address system. I made my way between the giant shelving units, past the mannequin farm, the janitor’s closet, and the receiving dock, and bounded up the big concrete stairs to the second floor.
This part of the stockroom wasn’t just quiet, it was creepy quiet. The shelving units reached the ceiling and were crammed with small, light-weight items. All of the store’s clothing hung from tall racks, each item still wrapped in plastic. There were rows and rows of lingerie and shapewear.
I didn’t like coming up here—long story—but it was the perfect spot for me to take care of some personal business since almost nobody came up here at this time of the day.
At the top of the staircase I turned left and found a secluded spot in the back corner between the shelving units. I pulled my cell phone out of my pocket and called Jack. He answered right away.
“Have you talked to Patrick yet?” I asked.
“This morning,” Jack said.
He sounded tense. I heard nothing in the background so I had no idea where he was or what he was doing, but I was pretty sure he wasn’t hiding out in the stockroom during a crappy part-time job like I was.
I saw no need to mention it.
“He said nothing unusual had been going on in the past several weeks,” Jack said. “No unusual phone calls, no strangers showing up at the house or the office, no threats. No problems with anything. Nothing out of the ordinary.”
“Did you ask him about Erika?” I asked.
“He said it was over between them.”
“Did you believe him?”
Jack was quiet for a few seconds then said, “Yes.”
I figured Jack and I were wondering the same thing—would Patrick admit to trying to rekindle a relationship with Erika? Doubtful, when it could be construed as a motive for murder.
“I think maybe Veronica was being blackmailed,” I said.
The notion had been on my mind since Brandie had let slip the dirty little family secret about Veronica’s mother. She’d come right out and said that everybody had agreed to keep it quiet, fearing Patrick and his old-money family might be embarrassed enough to bring a halt to their ride on the Pammy Candy gravy train. If that happened, Veronica had more to lose than anyone, making her an ideal blackmail victim.
“Talk to me, Haley,” Jack said.
His voice dropped a little—not quite to Barry White frequency, but close.
It was so hot.
“Andrea told me Veronica had been more stressed lately, even with everything that was going on with renovating the house, her family coming out, the candy business, the holidays,” I said, then told him about Veronica’s mom.
Everyone I’d talk to about Veronica and Patrick claimed that they were hopelessly, deeply in love. Yet I couldn’t help but wonder if Veronica questioned just how far Patrick’s love would stretch once the hugely embarrassing family secret was made public. The hoity-toity friends of the Spencer-Taft family wouldn’t likely give it an oh-well and move on.
“It’s possible somebody found out her mom is in prison and was blackmailing her,” I said.
“I’m on it,” Jack told me and ended the call.
I slid my cell phone into my pocket—I know it’s not possible but it actually felt warmer after talking to Jack—and headed for the stairs, then stopped when I heard footsteps. I peeked around the end of the shelving unit and spotted someone walking toward the other end of the stockroom.
It was one of the newly hired sales clerks, I realized, and it took me a few seconds to remember that her name was Gerri.
What the heck was she doing up here? All the seasonal employees shadowed the clerks who ran the registers, bagging merchandise to speed up the check-out lines. I couldn’t think of a reason for her to be up here—one that had something to do with actual work.
Then I remembered how she’d jumped up to do Rita’s bidding when the greeting cards had gotten trashed. Maybe Gerri really was a kiss-ass trying to get more hours or stay on past Christmas, as Sandy had suggested. Both were real possibilities.
Still, something about it bothered me and I wondered why, exactly, she’d come up here.
Immediately, I shifted into stealth-mode.
I tiptoed down the shelving unit, then cut across the aisles and dropped to my knees watching as Gerri made her way to the lingerie section. She flipped through the panties hanging on the rack, then looked back over her shoulder, pulled two pairs off of their hangers, and stuffed them into her pocket.
Gerri hurried back through the stockroom and skipped down the staircase. I waited until her footsteps faded, then followed her down. As I went through the stockroom doors, I spotted her going into the breakroom. I figured her shift had ended and she was clocking-out so I headed for the store entrance.
I walked slowly—not so slow as to entice customers to ask for help, of course—and reached the door in time to see Gerri go outside. I watched as she crossed the parking lot, got into a white Chevy and drove off.
Oh my God. She stole those panties.