Kissing Arizona (7 page)

Sarah set great store by her slot, so as soon as the box of bones was tagged and loaded onto the ME van, she hurried back to her desk and finished the report of her interviews with the Cooper siblings. She put down what they said and left out any speculation about their odd relationship, because she still hadn't figured that out. And as interesting as it might turn out to be, she was out of time now and had to get cracking on the employee interviews. She took them in the order they came up in her notebook, the store manager first.

Three uniformed officers had watched as Phyllis Waverly strode across the lobby at the station, and who could blame them? She was hard to look away from, a big woman with gleaming tawny hair and the confidence of a first-string quarterback. Sarah had seen her a couple of times in the North Oracle store, and remembered thinking that even a statuesque woman should give up skintight pants when she left her thirties behind. Maybe tone down the make-up a little too. But it was clear that no such doubts ever assailed Phyllis Waverly. The woman waded in her own river of high self-esteem, strutting around the store in high-heeled boots and clingy tops, yodeling friendly hellos to busy contractors.

And you had to give her this: none of her male customers looked anything but pleased when she swung her ample backside around a counter to help settle a question about the tile samples. She combined super-efficient sales technique with enough gleaming smiles to make people feel clever and special. And she knew, as they said, the territory; she got the customer together with the merchandise with no time wasted but no hurrying either. ‘Everybody's go-to gal,' Nicole had called her. It was easy to see why she got picked to manage the newer Cooper's Home Stores.

She apologized for being ten minutes late. ‘But I'm sure you can appreciate what a helluva mess I've got on my hands today.'

‘Of course.'

‘All the employees are coming to me for advice – what shall we do about this, how do you want to handle that? They don't want to bother the kids and there's nobody else. They all feel like Nicole and me, that the best way to honor the Coopers is to keep the stores running the same as always.'

‘I understand. Thanks for taking the time. This crime is very shocking and hard to understand, so . . . we're hoping the people like you who were close to them can fill in some of the gaps. Can I bring you anything? Soda or ice water?'

‘No thanks, I'm fine.' She sat down, sighed, and took off her dark glasses. Her eyes under their ample make-up looked red-rimmed and a little puffy – as if she had done some weeping earlier today.
Now there's a surprise.
Everything Sarah had heard from the Coopers' children suggested that the dead couple had cold personalities and very few personal relationships. So was Phyllis crying over them, or herself?

‘Now, Ms Waverly—'

‘Oh, please, call me Phyllis, everybody does.'

‘OK. Phyllis. Nicole tells me you're the only one who goes all the way back with this family. Is that true, that you're the one employee that knows all there is to know about Cooper's Home Stores and the family that built them?'

‘Well . . . yes, I guess . . . certainly if you're just talking about longevity, there's Willy, the maintenance man at the east-side store, and there's me. Both of us go back almost to the beginning. Makes me sound like a duffer, huh?'

‘Oh, I can't imagine anyone would describe you as a duffer.' Phyllis licked her lips and smiled, as pleased by the compliment as Sarah had intended. ‘But you've had a hand in the success of the stores all along, haven't you? And the business has grown steadily?'

‘Yes. That first little one-room store on Grant Road just sold paint and wallpaper. Now it's two warehouse-sized buildings dealing in lumber, tile, glass, carpet – and besides the retail business we wholesale to contractors.'

‘Were you working for them when they started?'

‘No, I was still in high school then. Lois hired me the day after I graduated.' She sighed, remembering. ‘They'd been doing all the work themselves for a couple of years, can you imagine? Open six days a week, and I think they restocked and paid bills on Sunday. Lois said, “I feel like I need a day off.” They had an apartment back of the store, and she was pregnant.'

‘That would be Tom?'

Phyllis shook her head. ‘Nicole. I know, Tom looks older. But Nicole came first, she was twenty-five in November. Tom's a couple of years younger.' She closed her eyes and whispered, ‘Poor Lois.' She swallowed and her mouth twitched, as if she might be going to cry some more. But her wide hazel eyes were clear and dry when she opened them.

‘I was married for a while myself, to my high-school sweetheart. We divorced after five years,' she said. ‘I was always working, trying for a better life. He wanted a better playmate, so he found one.'

‘Were the Coopers hard to work for? Is that why you're the only employee who lasted?'

‘Well . . . most retail stores have a high turnover. It's hard work, on your feet all day, and the starting pay certainly isn't the best. And then, yes –' she cleared her throat – ‘Frank and Lois have always been a hard-driving pair. At Cooper's a ten-minute break meant ten minutes, not eleven.'

‘But you didn't mind the pace?'

‘No, I guess I'm a little driven myself.'

I think that's a safe guess.
‘When did you last see the Coopers?'

‘Well . . . Lois, I haven't actually
seen
since . . . let's see . . . early in the week sometime. But we talked on the phone and emailed every day, sometimes five or six times a day.'

‘Including this last weekend?'

‘Saturday. Not Sunday. I work Sunday, but I'm the only one in top management that does – all the Coopers take Sunday off. They're Catholic, I'm not. I take off Monday. Usually. Not today, obviously.'

‘All that talking and emailing every day was about the business?'

‘Sure, what else? Oh, you mean were we chums? Did we join a book club or go to movies together or something?' She smiled broadly. ‘You didn't know her, huh?'

‘Just in the store. I was quite a good customer at the east-side store for a while.'

‘Well, if you knew her in the store you knew her as well as anybody did. Lois cared about the business and her family, and that was about it. She had one hobby, quilting with her sister on Sunday afternoons. Well, and Bingo at the church Wednesday night. She did that with her sister too – and slept over at her sister's house after, so she wouldn't have to drive home in the dark.'

‘Kind of narrowly focused?'

‘Tunnel vision, all the way.'

‘All those messages you exchanged, were they pleasant? Or was she on your tail about a lot of things?'

‘Not mine. She could be rough with employees who screwed up, but I knew how to please her. She was a hound for details, I suppose everybody's told you that? She wanted answers, fast. And not just stats, but “what do you think of this? How is that working . . . ?” Thought all the time about the business, never stopped.'

‘Do you remember the last message you got from her?'

‘Let's see.' Phyllis recrossed her legs and thought. ‘Saturday afternoon about quarter to six, she called and said, “What's with blush all of a sudden?” I said, “You mean somebody's embarrassed, or are you talking about the color?” and she said, “The color, why does everybody want it this week?” I said, “Lois, how many orders have you got for blush?” She said, “One yesterday and one today. We can mix the paint, but we don't stock tile in that color. I had to special order it.” See, two orders, that couldn't just be a coincidence, that might be a trend, and we'd be way behind the curve if we didn't climb right on top of it, tell people about it, sell the hell out of it.
That
was Lois Cooper.'

‘So, a little obsessed?'

‘Fair to say.'

‘But you were used to it?'

‘Totally. Lois and I,' Phyllis said, with a smug little smile, ‘got along like two turtle doves.'

‘Was anybody in the stores bearing a grudge?'

‘Not that I know of. In the east-side store you either got along with Lois or you were gone.' She tapped her glossy nails on Sarah's desk a few times. ‘She was right, too. Consistent service has been the biggest reason for Cooper's success.' After a couple of heartbeats she gave a funny little half-laugh and added, ‘And besides Lois liked being in charge so much she probably couldn't stop even if it was bad for business.'

Sarah turned a page in her notebook. ‘Was Frank as focused on the business as his wife?'

Phyllis Waverly stared into the middle distance for a few seconds and her lips moved a couple of times before she answered.

‘In a different way. They both liked being in charge but they went about it differently. She just did the chores, one day at a time. He was always thinking ahead, innovating. Didn't want to be bothered with store-keeping routines any more, wanted to talk about was the next big thing.'

‘You saying he wanted out?'

‘What? No! He wanted to be a tycoon! A mover and shaker.'

‘Well, he was getting there, wasn't he?'

‘Yes. He was on several boards and a city planning commission and so on.' She uttered what was evidently meant to be a good-natured chuckle. ‘Which left him plenty of time to keep three women busy!' Sarah watched, fascinated, as Phyllis Waverly described her dead boss's brilliance. ‘He got about three more bright ideas every day than we could possibly get around to trying.'
Is she composing her funeral tribute?
‘Always wanted the latest hot thing in the store. Then Lois and Nicole and I had to figure out the details – how to display it, advertise it, turn a profit on it. You know how easy it is to go broke selling Corion if you don't keep your staff trained?'

‘No, I'm afraid I—'

‘Or how hard it is to get everybody who works in two big stores to say the same thing about granite countertops? And about the time we'd get granite moving smoothly, Frank would waltz in with a new salesman and say, “Enough about that, come and look at these samples of slate.”' She stopped suddenly and favored Sarah with an intensely sincere look. ‘Please don't think I'm complaining. I don't mean to speak ill of the dead.'

‘I understand. You're saying he could be quite demanding.'

She chewed her lip a few seconds and said, ‘I'm saying he was just a remarkably energetic guy.'

‘OK. And the business prospered from all that energy?'

‘Oh, you bet.'

‘Did the relationship prosper too?'

‘Well, it wasn't always . . .' She stopped, took out a tissue, and wiped sweat off her upper lip. She looked as if she'd just had an alarming thought. Sarah waited, but after a couple of seconds Phyllis took a deep breath finally and said, calmly, ‘Naturally, with two people as different as Frank and Lois . . . they didn't always agree.'

‘Nicole told me her parents fought a lot.'

‘Fought is maybe a little . . . harsh. They argued.' She thought about it and added, ‘More lately, of course. Because of the proposed expansion.'

‘You mean the Phoenix store?'

‘Yes. Frank wanted it badly and Lois was determined to stop him.'

‘How did you feel about it?'

She shrugged. ‘Ready to swing with whatever they decided, of course. But I was hoping it would fly because I was slated to manage it.'

‘Would you be surprised to learn Frank Cooper killed his wife?'

‘What? Of course I'd be surprised.' Phyllis sat up straight, staring. ‘Is that what you're thinking? I haven't heard this before!'

‘It's one possible theory.'

‘My God! You're suggesting Frank killed – really? What makes you think . . . well, I suppose you can't tell me.'

‘If he did kill her, would you expect him to commit suicide?'

‘I wouldn't
expect
any of this, it all sounds
crazy
to me. I thought you were going to tell me something was stolen from the house. Have you looked into that? I thought you'd ask me . . . you know . . . who I thought might have been in their house when they came home and . . . have you checked all that? Are any of the locks . . . ?'

‘We haven't found any evidence of forced entry. Is there somebody you're suspicious about?'

‘Well, no . . . nobody in particular. But this is Tucson, after all, aren't we always reading about break-ins? And the drug thing, you know, people who . . . but you haven't finished your investigation yet, have you?'

‘No. It's still in the preliminary stage. And there could have been someone else in the house. Who else had keys besides the family?'

‘The housekeeper. Rosa something? I don't know who besides her, why don't you ask the kids?' It was the second time she'd called them that. Her attitude would need a little retooling if she was going to be working for them.

‘You never got a key? To water the plants when they travelled or . . . ?'

‘Didn't water any plants, didn't feed any cats. Don't do windows. I was a clerk and then a manager – I was never a servant.'

‘Apart from the business, was there any other reason he'd want to kill her?'

‘Well, I wouldn't know anything about
that
.'

‘You didn't share any confidences with Lois or Nicole?'