Make, Take, Murder (10 page)

“You never told me
that.”

“Invite me over for a glass of wine this weekend, and I’ll tell you the whole sad story.”

“I’d love to but I’m working here every day until Christmas.”

“No breaks at all?”

“No.”

With that, Bama stuck her head out of the office. “Five minutes ’til store opening. Have you paid attention to the schedule, Kiki?”

“What do you mean?”

Bama came over to where Mert and I stood petting the dogs. She gave Mert a nod. That passed for a gracious greeting from Miss Frosty. “I don’t see how we’re going to cover all our open hours. My sister can’t help us. The catering business is her first priority since they pay her health insurance. Even if you and I both work every open hour, we’ll need help. We can’t have adequate coverage with just one person, or even two.”

I decided not to tell her that Clancy had volunteered. As long as I held out, I was holding a handful of aces. If I played my cards right, I could offer Clancy’s help to Miss Smarty Pants, and I’d look like a hero for coming up with a solution to our problems. So instead of explaining that help was standing by, I studied the schedule Bama handed me.

Good. Clancy’s help was definitely needed. The hours of covering our sales floor totaled more than I expected. “I don’t see any way we can do this. How were we going to manage? It’s not just a stretch; it’s an impossibility.”

“It’s worse than it looks.”

“You mean because we have prep duty? Paperwork? Ordering supplies?”

“No,” said Bama. “I mean we have another problem.”

“You mean Dodie won’t be able to pitch in next week.”

Bama nodded. “There’s that, too. Horace called. He thinks she’s too worn out to help. Besides, he says the chemo has muddied her thinking.”

“That’s hard to imagine, but if he says it’s true, it must be.” My heart felt heavy as I passed the schedule to Mert. She was a wizard with management problems like this. Even so, she took one glance at it and shook her head. “What’s your other problem?”

“We need better floor coverage, and we need it now. Someone’s shoplifting merchandise. We’ve lost four Cricut cartridges in the past five days. Two of our most expensive albums are missing as well.”

She could have punched me in the stomach. Her words knocked all the wind from my lungs. I didn’t want to believe this. All the women who shopped here were our friends! Who would do this to us?

“Clancy volunteered to help. I’ll call her and ask when she might work,” I said. “Even so, we’ll still need help.”

“I got myself a young friend named Laurel Wilkins, and she needs a job,” said Mert. “I can vouch for her honesty personally. How about if I send her over? She’ll work cheap, and I know she’s been laid off from the Ford car plant. She’s real bright. Likes crafts. Got a great personality. Lots of pep.”

Bama and I nodded our approval. “Sounds good,” said my partner. “With Clancy and her, we can probably make do. Besides, we’ll need help when I leave to teach on that cruise to Cozumel in January.”

“But won’t that cut into our earnings? I was hoping we’d make a little extra during the season. For holiday shopping,” I added without needing to go on.

“If someone’s stealing from us, they are taking our profit. The way I see it, it’s six of one, half a dozen of another. I’d rather pay someone a fair wage than have stuff stolen from under our noses. Plus when it’s stolen, we lose those sales twice over.”

“How do you figure that?” I picked up Izzy and gave him a cuddle. This was why having dogs in the backroom was such a great idea. They offered their own brand of doggy Prozac without the hassle of a prescription.

“Unless I’m mistaken, this person is probably selling what she steals. She might even be taking orders online. That’s why she took multiples of the same item. So, we’re losing our investment in the product, our opportunity to sell and make a profit from that product, and we’ve lost the element of timing with the holiday season.” Bama held up three fingers as she ticked off her reasons.

Mert shook her head. “You’re losing out another way, too. See, the consumer who buys the stolen merchandise online ain’t buying it from you. She might even quit coming here and walking out with something extra ’cause she saw it in the store. So you’ve lost that revenue, too.”

Someone I trusted and liked was stealing from us. It couldn’t get much worse, could it?

Of course it could.

I turned the front
door sign to OPEN and readied the cash register.

Mert brought in the dog food, an instruction sheet, leashes, beds, and bowls. She dialed Laurel and passed her cell phone to Bama so the two could work out a time for an informal interview. I started waiting on customers. By the time I had the chance to come up for air, Mert had already left. I hadn’t gotten to say goodbye. I plunged right into restocking our hanging displays, moving back and forth among the racks quickly. Over the soothing sounds of “Snowfall” from
The Christmas Album
by The Manhattan Transfer, the store phone started ringing. Almost instantly, Bama and my cell phones rang in unison.

“What the …?” Bama and I could only stare at each other.

My phone displayed a text message from Sheila. “News about your leg,” it said.

“Huh?” I wondered more to myself than to anyone but Izzy. I was carrying him tucked inside my zip-front hoodie. I don’t know who was enjoying this cartage more, Iz or me.

“There’s a news bulletin on the TV,” said Bama as she closed her cell and sprinted toward the office.

A reporter stood in front of a late model Lexus convertible. Yellow crime scene tape encircled the car, and a phalanx of folks wearing Crime Scene jumpers were swarming the vehicle. The newscaster said, “Police tell us that this was most certainly the scene of a crime, and probably a fatal one at that.”

“How can they tell?” asked the unseen anchor. A news ticker bar ran across the bottom of the screen announcing, “Blood-soaked vehicle found at Lambert Airport in long-term parking.”

“Given the amount of blood in the car, no one could have lived through the assault,” said the reporter.

“The police are sure it belongs to the missing woman?” The anchor prodded as the screen flashed the car’s interior. The leather seats had been blackened with what was obviously blood.

“Yes. This 2009 Lexus is registered to Cindy Gambrowski of #20 Ladue Forest Drive.”

I’m not sure what Bama was thinking, but I fought the urge to upchuck. I’m real squeamish about blood. I’d love to donate mine to the Red Cross, but I’ve heard fainters need not apply.

“The missing woman’s husband is Ross Gambrowski, the builder,” the reporter continued.

Bama moaned.

“He says he hasn’t seen his wife for four days.” A screen shot showed a publicity photo with the name “Ross Gambrowski” underneath. “Mr. Gambrowski told the police that he thought he and his wife had simply missed each other in passing. Seems they both have busy schedules. A spokesman says Mr. Gambrowski had no reason to suspect foul play. But that’s not the only reason the police have their suspicions.”

The anchor’s voice interjected, “There was a body part found at a local scrapbook store, right?”

Bama covered her eyes.

“Right. The store’s name is Time in a Bottle. That’s over on Brentwood, south of the Galleria. The body part turned up in their trash Dumpster. The police have impounded the bin, and all they’ll say is that their investigation is ongoing.”

“But you think that body part might belong to our missing woman?” prodded the off-screen anchor.

“That’s right. An anonymous tip to our newsroom suggested the severed leg found in the Dumpster behind this scrapbook store”—and a shot of Time in the Bottle appeared—“belonged to Cindy Gambrowski.”

Cindy’s smiling face filled the screen.

The anchor’s face concluded, “If anyone has any knowledge of Mrs. Cindy Gambrowski’s whereabouts, they are encouraged to call this phone number.”

That was all I could take. I reached over and turned off the set.

Funny how fast the grapevine transfers “knowledge.” Our phones rang non-stop, our cell phones jingled, and car doors slammed in the parking lot.

This time the media burst through our front door.

“Out! Out! This is a place of business! It’s private property!” I shooed them past the merchandise and toward the door. Using my forearms as shields, I backed reporters and cameramen out of the store. “Bama?” I yelled. I flipped the sign to CLOSED and turned around.

Bama had disappeared.

The reporters started pounding
on our front door.

Robbie Holmes pulled up, the bubble light and siren both going full-blast on his official car. He hopped out and waved his arms. “People?”

The media turned as if it were a Hydra, whose many heads just caught sight of a ship full of sailors. “Police Chief Holmes!” they screamed.

“People, this is private property, and you are hindering an investigation.” His voice rose over the din. “I will answer two questions if you promise to vamoose.”

“Is Cindy Gambrowski officially dead?” yelled a woman in the back.

“Folks, you know how this works. We still need to search for the woman or her remains. At this point, Mrs. Gambrowski is a missing person.” His tone conciliatory and his big hands open, Robbie Holmes spoke with the ease of a man who has nothing to hide. His years on the force and his personal demeanor underscored every word with an easy authority. From my spot by the front door, I watched the crowd’s collective shoulders relax in response to his words.

“But you might have found a portion of her leg!” shouted a man in the back. “And all that blood was in the car!”

That animal, the crowd, raised hackles again. A slight surge of body weight brought them a skosh closer to Robbie. But his stance didn’t change. In fact, he busied both his hands in his pants pockets like a kid on a playground fishing around for a lost stick of gum. Then he rocked back on his heels and smiled. His face appeared totally guileless.

“Now you know as well as I do, we can’t say if that was her leg. Or her blood. Not yet at least. As for her disappearance, if after a sufficient length of time Mrs. Gambrowski is officially missing, her husband Mr. Ross Gambrowski can petition the court to have her declared dead,” Robbie stood head and shoulders over most of the crowd. His commanding posture quickly dampened their herd instinct. Instead of jostling about, they stood quietly, photographed him and listened.

“But doesn’t the amount of blood tell you something? No one could lose that much blood and still live!” This came from another man at the back of the crowd as he waved a big black microphone in the air.

“Ah, come on, people. We haven’t run any lab tests on what we found. Folks, we aren’t a fancy TV show like CSI. You all know that! We’re real professionals working with a limited number of labs and technicians. Besides, you all are jumping the gun, aren’t you? For all we know, that’s cow blood or pig blood some prankster splashed in that car,” he chuckled. His ease of manner was infectious. You could tell he faced down the press on numerous occasions. “Makes for mighty fine speculation, doesn’t it? But you don’t want to get yourself caught up reporting the wrong thing, do you? You all are having a field day pouncing on wrong conclusions. Heck, you’re professionals. You know things are usually more complicated than they seem.” Robbie Holmes flashed an “Aw, Shucks!” grin. That and the stunning dollop of common sense shut everyone up. But only for a hot New York minute.

“What about the messages? We heard there were messages from Mrs. Gambrowski suggesting someone named Kiki Lowenstein is involved!” I shivered in my Keds. Terrific. I was about to be dragged into this kicking and screaming.

Or skulking. I stepped away from my spot behind our locked front door. I decided I’d go hide in the backroom. But when I looked around the store, Bama was already gone. My plan—sketchy and hastily conceived—was to ask her to take my place up in the front of the store. Since her name hadn’t been mentioned in that dastardly message, she could easily defer all these pesky questions.

But Bama was MIA.

I found her huddled in a corner back in Dodie’s office. Her skin wore the sheen of perspiration and her teeth chattered. “Put your head between your knees,” I ordered her. Those years of Girl Scout training came in handy. “Do it, now!”

I grabbed a cola for her and shoved it under her face. “Drink.”

My cell phone rang. I recognized Robbie Holmes’ number and read his text message: “Let me in the front door.”

I left Bama long enough to go unlock the front door and allow Robbie entrance. As I did, I noticed that the media circus was folding its tents and heading home.

“Thanks,” said Robbie.

“No problem. Thank you. You did a masterful job of bearding the lion.”

“I promised them a press conference later.” He chuckled. “That’s the media for you. I once went on a fox hunt out in Virginia. You know they don’t kill foxes here in the States, don’t you? That wily animal always stayed two steps ahead of those hounds, running down gopher holes, hiding in trees, climbing over fences. Hounds can scent the fox, but their eyesight stinks. I saw that old red fox pitter-patter in front of those dogs easy as you please. There’s a lesson in that. Don’t run from them.” He jerked a thumb over his shoulder. “You just heard the baying hounds, Kiki. Problem is: They’ve caught the scent of a big story. I don’t need to tell you, this isn’t going away.”

From the back of the store came a scream and the sound of barking.