Death of a Garage Sale Newbie (13 page)

Ginger swished the tea
bag back and forth in her Styrofoam cup. A dollar twenty-five seemed pretty steep for an ordinary cup of tea. For a buck and a quarter, you’d think they would at least provide her with a nice mug. She always carried tea bags in her purse and just asked for hot water. But Arleta had offered to buy the drink, and Ginger didn’t want to hurt her feelings.

At 12:45 a.m., the food court at the mall was abandoned except for the four women who sat around the table with her: Kindra, Suzanne, Arleta, and Officer Welstad.

Other shoppers still milled through the stores that were open, but the bulk of them had grabbed their goodies and gone home to bed. For the two times a year that the mall had midnight shopping, they stayed open until two in the morning, a tradition that had started twenty years ago when the mall was built.

Arleta leaned close. “Is that sweater keeping you warm?”

Ginger tugged at the collar of the cardigan Arleta had loaned her. “Yes, thank you.”

Though it was a warm, summer night, the mall was kept at a comfortable temperature. But after that man had pushed her down and threatened to kill her friends, a chill she couldn’t get rid of invaded her bones. The stress of it all had been too much. Already the shooting stars across her eyes and the feeling that her head was being squeezed tighter and tighter told her she had a couple of hours tops before her migraine became full-blown.

She’d dug through her purse for her medication the second the symptoms started. Maybe she’d caught this one in time and could ward it off. She needed to get home and take the nausea medication.

Tammy continued to talk, but Ginger could barely hear her above the voice that kept repeating in her head. “
Leave your dead friend alone or you’ll lose another one
.” She wouldn’t risk losing the friends she still had to find Mary Margret’s killer.

Arleta pushed her chair a little closer to Ginger’s. What a horrible night the older woman had had. Ginger couldn’t imagine having to listen to someone going through your personal papers. It seemed too coincidental that she and Kindra had been at Arleta’s house, that Earl thought someone had been in their family room, and then an intruder had gone through Arleta’s stuff all in the same night.

Ginger arranged the sugar packets into rows beside her cup. None of this speculation mattered. What would she do if she lost her bargain hunter friends? The quest for a good deal might have brought them together, but even if there was never another half price sale, she’d love these women until the end of time.

Kindra laid her hand over Ginger’s. “What do you think of that?”

Kindra had on blue nail polish with little pink flowers painted on top. So pretty. Ginger reached over and squeezed the young woman’s hand. “I’m sorry, I wasn’t listening.”

Tammy cleared her throat. “I know you’re probably tired. I didn’t mean for us to meet this late. The evening kind of got out of control for me.”

“Someone pushed Ginger down in the parking lot when we were waiting to go into Macy’s,” Suzanne said. “Some people can just get so greedy that they throw manners out the window.”

Ginger stacked the sugar packets one on top of another. She hadn’t told Suzanne and Kindra about the man’s threat. And she wasn’t going to tell them. She didn’t want them to worry.

“All I’m saying is that I think the investigation of your friend’s death was swept under the carpet too quickly.” Tammy leaned a little closer. “I can’t afford to lose my job—I hope I haven’t already lost it—but when I’m not on duty I will help you as much as I can. What matters here is that the right thing is done.”

Kindra touched Ginger’s shoulder. “That’s good news, don’t you think?”

“I don’t see what good it will do. If someone powerful in the police department doesn’t want us to get to the bottom of this, how are we going to find out anything?”

The furrows between Suzanne’s eyebrows intensified. “What are you saying? We’ve worked so hard already.”

Ginger tossed a sugar packet on the table. “And we’ve come up with nothing.” She wrapped her arm around Arleta’s bony shoulder. “This woman is obviously not a criminal. The stuff Mary Margret got from her is benign.” Of course, she didn’t believe that. The break-ins were probably connected, but she needed to protect Kindra and Suzanne.

Suzanne stirred her soft drink with a straw. “We still have to connect that shell box to someone.”

“We need to catch Keaton Lustrum at home.” Kindra bounced three times in her plastic seat. “I bet that box is worth a million dollars or something. Maybe it got sold by accident, like the fishing pole.”

Ginger shook her head. If someone knew she was retracing Mary Margret’s steps and that Kindra and Suzanne were her best friends, that meant someone had them under surveillance. What kind of power would a person have to have to find out that kind of stuff about you?

She stared at the store entrances that surrounded the food court, studying each loitering shopper. One of these people was probably watching them right now. A chill, like a million tiny spiders with frozen feet, ran down her spine. She gathered the collar of the cardigan up to her neck.

“The box isn’t worth a million dollars. I think we should just forget the whole thing.” Besides, just because three women could track down a good deal didn’t mean they could take on a person who could track their every move. Maybe they should just pony up and hire a private detective.

“This isn’t the best time to make a decision.” Tammy took a sip of her Diet Coke. “Maybe you’ll change your mind. I’ll stay in touch.”

Ginger wasn’t so sure about Tammy’s motive. First she said Mary Margret’s death was an accident, and then she said it wasn’t. Maybe she was a spy planted to watch them. She pressed the sugar packet between her fingers. She didn’t know who to trust anymore.

“I just don’t get you, Ginger.” Kindra yawned, took the top off her latte cup, and peered inside.

Ginger had lost count of how many caffeinated beverages the nineteen-year-old had downed in the course of the evening. “It’s late, kid. Why don’t you come back to the house and spend the night. I just hate the thought of you walking through that dorm room parking lot and up that elevator by yourself.”

And I just hate the thought of you getting an arrow through your back.
Suzanne would be safe with Greg.

Kindra stared at her for a moment before answering. Ginger had never lied to her friends, never kept anything from them. This was worse than if one of her contacts at Dillard’s told her about an upcoming sale and she hadn’t told Kindra and Suzanne.

“Sure, Ginger. That might be easier than you taking me home.” Kindra licked the foam off her coffee lid and continued to gaze at Ginger. The kid was no dummy; she knew something was up.

Tammy gathered her keys from the table. “Actually, I need to go back to your place. I left my son there with your husband.”

“Oh, really?” Ginger rose to her feet. Tammy certainly was getting awful cozy with them very fast.

“Yes, your husband is quite a clever inventor. Trevor was pretty impressed.”

Why was it that everybody else could know Earl for ten minutes and see him as a genius, and she had spent the last two years thinking he was “piddling” around his garage working on “contraptions”?

Ginger grabbed her purse. They headed toward the Macy’s entrance where their cars were parked. Tammy waved good-bye and said she’d see them out at the house. When Ginger said good night to Suzanne, she held her an extra moment longer, squeezed her a little tighter. Suzanne smelled of cooking oil and baby lotion with the hint of her own floral perfume buried underneath.

She pulled free of the hug and held Ginger’s hands. “Is everything okay?”

“Yes, it’s just that I…I…” Ginger pulled her hands out of Suzanne’s grasp.

Suzanne tilted her head and gazed at Ginger. The strong emotion she had not been able to keep out of her voice probably confused Suzanne. After all, she wasn’t leaving to be a missionary in Antarctica.

“Ginger, is there something you’re not telling us?”

“Yeah,” added Kindra.

“No, it’s just the fallout in the parking lot. It made me realize how much I care about you two.”

“Kind of like a near-death experience.”

Ginger nodded at Kindra. “Something like that, kiddo.”

Satisfied with the answer, Suzanne lumbered toward the entrance. Even from the back, her duck walk gave away that she was pregnant.

Ginger unzipped her purse to pull out her keys. Inside were the three tea packets wrapped in cellophane that she always carried with her. She bought the tea in eighty-bag boxes at the Costco in a neighboring town. Such a deal. She pulled the bags out and turned them over in her hand.

“Kindra, why don’t you go on up ahead. I’ll meet you outside.” Ginger took two steps and then turned back around. “Be careful.”

“Yeah, sure.” Kindra nodded, but her expression communicated confusion.

Ginger made her way back down to the food court. Arleta sat by herself sipping her dollar and a quarter tea. She smiled when she saw Ginger. The mall was almost completely abandoned, only a few stragglers left.

Ginger walked over to her table. “You must have had quite a scare. That man coming into your house and everything.”

Arleta spoke rapidly, as though longing to talk to someone. “The police officer didn’t believe me. But I am telling you that neighborhood is not safe anymore. I should just sell the place, but I can’t think of where I would go.”

“Must be hard to think about going back there tonight. Why don’t you come and stay with me. I’ll put Kindra on the couch, and you can have the guest bed. You can follow me out in your car.”

Arleta’s mouth curled up and she nodded. “Thank you.”

Should she share the financial benefits of carrying a tea bag in your purse instead of paying a buck twenty-five? Arleta had said she was on a fixed income, so she could probably use some money saving tips. Maybe she would save that little tidbit until they were better friends.

Suzanne crawled into bed beside her snoring husband and performed the twenty-minute procedure of trying to find a sleeping position that was within a couple miles of comfortable.

She was pretty sure she wouldn’t ever get a good night’s sleep until the last kid graduated from high school and left home. Who would have thought an ordinary thing like sleep would become such a precious commodity? Mattress commercials made her cry. All those people looked so comfortable, so relaxed. She pulled the body pillow a little closer.

Greg’s voice, faint and groggy, floated across the bed. “Hey, how was midnight shopping? Did you have a nice time with the girls?”

Suzanne drew her legs a little closer to her body. The baby was doing karate in her tummy tonight. “We didn’t get much shopping done. It was pretty exciting though. I’ll tell you in the morning. Did the kids behave okay for you?”

Greg rolled over and touched her arm. “They were good. Except you need to have a talk with Emily about telling lies. She said there was a man with a price tag on his head looking for boxes in our house.”

“She just has a good imagination, Greg.”

“She made the dog bark, probably poking at him again, and I think she was trying to cover for that.”

“A man with a price tag on his head.”

“Weird, huh?” Greg’s breathing intensified and then turned to snoring.

She stared at the ceiling, waiting for the heaviness of sleep to overtake the discomfort of being so huge.

A man with a price tag on his head. The thought of Emily telling the story while sucking on her fingers made Suzanne smile.