It had been a slow evening, and my legs were starting to get cramped. I’d been crouching behind this potted palm tree for what seemed like forever.
The mall after closing time was a very quiet place. A lone security man made his rounds every fifteen minutes or so, but that was it. In a more modern mall, there’d have been security cameras everywhere, and men in a video booth watching the monitors. But not here at good old East Side.
Nothing much else was happening in my sector. I found myself wondering how Joe was making out.
Then suddenly I heard a loud cry of pain and a splash from the direction of the fountain. That was enough to get me out of my hiding place in a hurry!
When I got to the fountain, Joe was already up to his knees in the water, dragging Oskar toward me.
Oskar didn’t look too good.
“Joe! What happened?”
“What does it look like? Come on, Frank, give me a hand here—this guy weighs a ton!”
“Corpses usually do,” I said, taking off my shoes and socks and rolling up my pants before getting into the pool.
“Gee, take your time,” Joe commented.
“Hey, give me a break. He’s already dead, the poor old guy—I mean, he was kind of nasty, but he sure didn’t deserve this.”
We laid Oskar down on the floor. That’s when I saw the huge lump on the back of his head. “Looks like somebody conked him with something.”
I checked in the pool. Sure enough, there was a large lava lamp resting on the bottom. I fished it out and showed it to Joe. The price tag read In the Groove.
“I saw a blond lady running around here just before it happened,” Joe said. “She had long braids with a headband, and torn jeans…. I’m pretty sure it was Steph.”
“Sounds like her, all right.”
“I guess it looks really bad for her now, huh?”
“Like it didn’t before? You know, I think it’s very possible somebody wants it to look that way.”
“Come to think of it, it could have been that gang of kids,” Joe said. “Someone taped up the door to the parking garage so they could come back in. It might have been the kids.”
“Did you see them?”
“No. I was following the blonde.”
“Hmm. That’s my brother—always going after the ladies.”
“Hey, can it, okay? Steph was acting very suspicious.”
“Well, she’s not supposed to be hanging around here at all, according to the conditions of her bail,” I said.
“I know—that’s what I mean!” He told me about overhearing Applegate’s two phone conversations, and his suspicion that the first was with Steph. “He gave her a twenty-four-hour deadline for something, Frank. Maybe she got desperate. She sure was acting that way.”
“It might not have been her he was talking to,” I pointed out. “Meanwhile, how do you know it was those kids who taped the door? Maybe it was Steph.”
“No way, Frank. As a store owner, she would’ve had a key.”
I looked back over at the fountain. “Hey, Joe,” I said, noticing something I hadn’t seen before. “Check this out—over here.”
On the bottom of the pool, near where Oskar had been floating, the coins people had thrown into the fountain had been arranged in a distinct pattern: STEMM. And this time, the Ms were interlocking.
Joe gave me a look.
“It’s not proof of anything,” I said. “Those kids tried to make her look guilty once before, remember?”
Oskar’s broom/rake, fitted with mesh to scoop up the coins for collection, was still floating on the water. I fished it out but left the coins there for the police to find. After all, it was about time we called them.
Chief Collig was all over me and Joe. He grilled us like a pair of hot dogs—no, make that Phil’s Phranks. And from what we told him, he quickly decided on a course of action.
“This has gone far enough,” he told Con Reilly and the other senior officers standing by his side. “We’re talkin’ murder now. I want that woman taken in—and this time, for keeps. And drag that bunch of no-good kids in while you’re at it—no sense taking chances.”
The press were gathered outside, flashbulbs popping, trying to get a few pictures through the glass of the doors. “I’ve got to get out there and make a statement to those vultures,” the chief muttered to Reilly. “Think you can handle things in here for a while?”
“No problem, Chief,” said Con.
“I won’t be too long.”
After he was gone, I turned to Joe and said, “I don’t believe Paul Burns and those kids killed Oskar. Do you?”
“There was bad blood between them, Frank—you saw how they kept bothering him.”
“Yeah, but that’s not the same thing as killing him.”
“What if he threatened them or something?”
“Joe, he was killed with a lava lamp—one that still had a price tag on it. Someone obviously was thinking ahead enough to walk into In the Groove and grab it off the shelf, knowing in advance that they were going to smash it over Oskar’s head. I don’t think those kids are capable of that much planning.”
“Good point,” he had to admit. “But the fact remains that the lamp came from In the Groove. It’s the kind of store those kids would shop at. So maybe one of them ducked in, grabbed it on the spur of the moment, and conked Oskar.”
I shook my head. “I don’t buy it.”
“Well, then, maybe we’re trying to make this whole thing more complicated than it is. Maybe Stephanie Flowers killed him after all. Maybe it was part of STEMM’s sabotage campaign.”
Maybe, but somehow, it just didn’t sit right.
“Why would they kill Oskar as part of a sabotage campaign?” I asked. “Wouldn’t they just try to do damage to the property itself? And besides, the warning said ‘Next time during business hours.’ If you believe it came from STEMM, then Oskar’s murder makes no sense.”
“Wait a second!” Joe cried, smacking himself in the forehead. “I forgot to tell you. I overheard Oskar telling Phil that he was going to be rich. It wasn’t ten minutes before he died.”
I grabbed him by both shoulders. “Joe, don’t you remember the night the glass fell, I caught Oskar picking something out of the shattered glass and hiding it in his pocket? I chased after him, but he must have hidden it someplace before I caught up with him.”
“Yeah, I remember. What ever happened with that?”
“What if Oskar found a piece of incriminating evidence pointing to whoever cut the glass? If he tried to blackmail that person …”
“Of course!” Joe spoke excitedly. “But what was it? And where is it now?”
“Whoever killed Oskar probably has it,” I said. “Unless …”
“Unless what?”
“Unless Oskar was keeping it safe … in which case, it might still be wherever he hid it that night! Come on, Joe. Follow me!”
I led him away from the fountain, all the way down the promenade to that little corridor where I’d cornered Oskar. “If he didn’t come back for it, it has to be in one of these two rooms.”
Fishing my lock-picking set out of my pocket, I got to work on the first of the two doors. It opened pretty easily. Inside was a broom closet—an empty one at that. It took us all of three minutes to scour it and move on.
The second room was also a closet—but this one held Oskar’s spare overalls, coat, and hat. I checked all the pockets. There was some change, a dirty hankie—and a sleek, slim, tiny, very expensive-looking cell phone—one that could never in a million years have belonged to Oskar.
“Hey, Joe—check this out.”
“Whoa! Pay dirt!” he said, recognizing it instantly as an important clue. “Well, fire it up, bro! Let’s find out whose it is!”
I hit the on button, but nothing happened. “Hmm. Battery must be dead.” I checked the charger input—it was tiny. We were definitely going to need a special charger—something we couldn’t get till morning.
“I guess we’ll just have to wait,” said Joe, pocketing it.
“Hey, who found it?” I asked, sticking my hand out.
“Oh, all right,” he said, handing it over. “Baby’s gotta have his toy.”