Marcia Muller - McCone And Friends

I hurried out of Paper Fantasy-possibly provoking a call to security by the clerk-and headed for Left Coast Casuals.

Only two salesclerks manned the store, and there were no customers. I wandered up and down the aisles, scanning for the cameras. There were four, with a range that covered the entire sales floor. While stealing jewelry, Adrian would have had to stand around here, in plain sight of that one. For lingerie, camera number two would have done the observing. Stupid. How could the kids be so stupid?

Of course I knew the answer to that-anybody who’s ever shoplifted does. The cameras are there, sure, but you just assume they’re not recording your particular store at the time, or being monitored. And you’re certain that you’re being oh-so-subtle when actually you’re about as discreet as a moose picking its way through a bed of pansies. And then there’s the urge that just washes over you -ooh, that irresistible impulse, that heady pulse-quickening temptation to commit the act that will bring on that delicious soaring high.

Yeah, the kids were stupid. Like I’d been stupid. Like a drug addict, an alcoholic, a binge-eater is stupid.

“Ms. Kelleher?” the voice was Sue Hanford’s. “Can I help you?”

I swung around. She’d come out of the stock room and stood a few feet away from me, near the fake angora sweaters. “I was just looking the store over once more, before going up to see Ben Waterson.”

Her face became pinched, two white spots appearing at the corners of her mouth. “You won’t find him in the office. I know, because I just called up there. I’ll tell you, I’ve about had it with him not being available when I need him.”

”This happens a lot?”

“Well, yesterday morning around eleven-thirty. He said he’d come and talk about the problem I’ve been having with a gang of girls who are creating disturbances outside and intimidating my customers, but then he never showed up. I called and called, but he’d taken off without saying why. He didn’t come back until six.”

But yesterday morning around eleven-thirty I’d seen him just outside the store, arguing with Kirby Dalson. Waterson had claimed Sue Hanford was the one who was away, leaving him in charge. “Were you in the store all day yesterday?” I asked.

She nodded. “I worked a fourteen-hour shift.”

“And today?” I asked. “Waterson wasn’t available again?”

“Yes. He took off about half an hour ago, when he’s supposed to be on shift till nine-thirty.”

“I see.”

“Ms. Kelleher? If you do go up there and find Ben has come back will you ask him to come down here?”

“Sure,” I said distractedly. Then I left the store.

A taco, I thought. There was a taco stand down in the food concession area. Maybe a taco and a Coke would help me think this one through.

Okay, I thought, reaching for Gordito’s Beef Supreme taco-piled high with extra salsa, guacamole, and sour cream-somebody in the security office here has been getting the goods on the kids who are shoplifting and turning the evidence over to Kirby so he could blackmail them into working for him. If I wasn’t trained not to jump to conclusions I’d say Ben Waterson, because his behavior has been anything but on the up-and-up lately. Okay, I’ll say it anyway-Ben Waterson. Kirby was a good contact man for Waterson-he knew the kids, knew their weak spots, and after they ripped off the stuff he would wholesale some of it at school, keeping Waterson out of the transaction. Kind of a penny-ante scheme, though, if you think about it. Would hardly have brought in enough to keep Kirby, much less Waterson, in ready cash. And there had to be something in it for Waterson. But then there were the other kids-like Del-who didn’t work here but ripped things off for Kirby, maybe big-ticket items, here and at other malls as well. And there was the rented house on Naples Street.

Those storage sheds in the backyard-sheds full of Ron Owens’ mother’s things that Owens claims were worth quite a bit-I’ll bet all of that got fenced, and then they filled up the sheds with new merchandise while they tried to find a buyer for it. Not hard to find one, too, not in this town. Neighbors said a lot of people came and went at Naples Street, so it could have been a pretty substantial fencing operation.

I know a fair amount about fencing, courtesy of Willie Whelan, who in recent years, thank God, has “gone legit,” as he puts it. So far the scenario made sense to me.

The taco was all gone. Funny -I’d barely tasted it. I looked longingly at Gordito’s, than balled up the wrappings and turned my attention back to the case.

Where does Adrian fit into all this? Last spring she starts to change, according to her school friends. She’s been taking her five-finger employee discount for a while, oblivious to what Kirby and Waterson are up to. Then Kirby comes to her with pictures, and suddenly he’s got the upper hand in the relationship. Adrian’s still pretty demoralized-the father leaving, the mother who’s always spouting phrases like “potential to be”-so she lets Kirby control her. Did she steal for him? Help him with the fencing? Had to have, given that she was familiar enough with the Naples Street house to walk in and plunk her backpack down in the living room. I’m pretty sure she slept with him-even the other kids know that.

Okay, suppose Adrian does all of that. Maybe she even glamorizes the situation as young women will do in order to face themselves in the morning. But fetching the condiments for the hamburgers of a young man who can damned well get them himself grows old real fast, and after a while she starts to chafe at what her therapy wall calls “white slavery.” So, as she tells her friend Anna, she’d decided to “blow the whistle and game will be over.”

How? By going to the cops? Or by going to the head of mall security, Ben Waterson?

I got up, tossed my cup and taco wrappings in a trash bin, and headed for the security office.

Waterson wasn’t there. Had left around six after a phone call, destination unknown, the woman on the desk old me. I persuaded her to check their log to see if Adrian Conway had reported losing her i.d. badge about a week before she disappeared, as Waterson had told Adah Joslyn. No record of it, and there would have been had it really happened.

Caught you in another lie, Ben!

Back down to the concession area. This time I settled for coffee and a Mrs. Fields cookie.

So Adrian probably went to Waterson, since she had the phone number of the security office scribbled on an envelope in her backpack. And he…what? Lured her away from the mall and killed her? Hid her body? Then why was her backpack at Naples Street? Waterson would have left it with the body or gotten rid of it. And would Waterson have gone to such lengths, anyway?

Well, Kirby was murdered, wasn’t he?

But would Kirby have kept quiet if he thought Waterson had murdered his girlfriend? The kid was a cold one, but…Maybe I just didn’t want to believe that anybody that young could be that cold. And that was poor reasoning-if you don’t believe me, just check out the morning paper most days.

Another thing-who was this person Adrian had talked about, who would take her side and not take any shit off of anybody? Maybe Waterson had played it subtle with her, pretending to be her protector, then spirited her off somewhere and-

The prospects for her survival weren’t any better with that scenario.

I was so distracted that I bit clear through the cookie into my tongue. Swore loud enough to earn glares from two old ladies at the next table.