Chapter 26

 

The entire transaction with Livingston had taken less than thirty minutes and I was back at the outskirts of El Paso with plenty of time to grab some lunch and pursue my other case. Las Cruces is a quick forty-five minute drive, and the first exit sent me toward a selection of fast-food choices. I wheeled into the first Mexican food place I spotted and ordered a burrito.

Managing the floppy foil-wrapped packet, I pulled the Walmart receipt I’d stolen from the Delaney dining room table and found the store’s address. I’m not terribly familiar with the town, but figured these big-box stores tend to group together on the major throughways. Surely, I could find it by driving around, but the appeal of finishing this task quickly and being home in my own bed tonight won out. I called out to an older couple who sat at the next table.

“Do you live here in town?” I asked. “Do you know how I would get to the Walmart over on Walton Boulevard?”

I got two versions but the woman’s directions seemed more straightforward. I left them to discuss it, wadded up my food wrappers and beat a path back to the Jeep. I pulled into the Walmart lot less than ten minutes later—the beauty of a small town.

“I’d like to speak with the store manager,” I told the woman behind the customer service desk.

She eyed the receipt in my hand. “If it’s about a return, I can help you.”

“Thanks, but it’s something else.”

She asked to see the receipt anyway, examined it, handed it back.

My hundred-thousand-dollar transaction with Jay Livingston had drawn less scrutiny. Eventually, she paged a Bill Morgan who came from somewhere in the back and greeted me politely. He had the country air of a guy who might have been a dairy farmer before the economy changed and corporations dealt out the better-paying jobs. I introduced myself as a partner in RJP Investigations from Albuquerque and said we were looking into a missing-persons case.

We’d been talking quietly off to the side, but I could sense curiosity from the customer service lady so I suggested we go to his office.

“I wonder if you can show me the store’s video footage for the day and time this sale was made,” I said, giving him the receipt once he’d led the way to the back.

“The asset protection office is right next to mine. Let’s check.”

The fancified title belonged to a security manager. It took a few minutes’ discussion between the store manager and this guy, but they finally decided the video from two weeks ago should still be available. Security guy performed some moves at his computer keyboard and motioned me to step around the desk and take a look.

“Your receipt says the sale was made at one of the self-check kiosks, number three, to be exact, so here’s the view of it.”

I’d always been aware that the little bluish-black domes in the ceilings of retail stores were cameras, but I’d never seen how much detail they captured. On the screen before me, I saw an overhead shot of a check stand. As he edged the picture forward a few seconds at a time, a slender blonde with her hair up in a long ponytail wheeled her shopping cart up to it. In a few seconds’ time she’d run a bag of cookies, a frozen pizza, a six-pack of Cokes, a tube of toothpaste and a pack of toilet paper through the scanner and bagged them. The items matched what the receipt said, and the food choices matched what I’d seen in evidence at the Delaney house.

The girl pulled a credit card from her purse and inserted it in the machine. While it did its thing, she reached up and scratched the top of her head, fiddled with the purse strap, and generally seemed impatient. The moment the machine released her card she grabbed it and picked up her two bags. As she approached the exit door, a face-on view showed me it was indeed one of the Delaney girls.

“I’ll switch to the parking lot camera now,” said the security man.

When he did, we saw the blonde walking briskly across the lot. She got into a blue Corvette.

“Is she the one?” Mr. Morgan asked.

“Yes, it’s the girl I’m looking for. The story is that she’s attending school down here but the college can’t verify she’s enrolled.”

“Well, you’d have to check that with them,” Morgan said.

“I thought of that, but this being Sunday the admissions offices are closed.”

“Could be she just moved here and got a job,” he suggested. That very thing had crossed my mind at one point.

“Do you have facial recognition programs?” I asked. “Something that would scan all the videos and see if she’s a regular shopper here?”

Security dude shook his head. “We’d have to go through them all manually. It’s a lot of work.”

Bill Morgan spoke up: “Yeah, it is. Normally, I can’t justify that much of an employee’s time unless the law is asking and a court order goes along with it.”

“I understand.” I thought about what my next moves should be, came up with nothing of much use. “Could you do me a favor? If you happen to see her in the store again, would you mind giving me a call? It would be helpful if I could report to her family that she’s alive and well and where she’s living. That’d be good enough for them—for now, anyway.” I handed him a business card.

I sensed reluctance on his part but he agreed. I walked out, conscious that my moves were appearing on the cameras the whole way out the door and going to my vehicle. The feeling was somewhat reassuring, somewhat creepy. There didn’t seem any point in my cruising the streets of town hoping to catch a glimpse of the twin. I already knew both Corvettes were regularly at the house in Albuquerque, so if one of the girls had moved here she’d switched to a different car.

None of the story I’d been given so far made sense, but I didn’t think the answers were to be found here in Las Cruces. Home beckoned. I called Ron to update him with my progress in the Lorrento case. He didn’t much want to stay at the office into the evening, so I said I would deliver the ring to his house.

By two o’clock I was on the road for home again, glad business was taken care of—at least to the best of my ability. I now had several hours ahead of me to decide what to do next about Donna Delaney’s request.