Bending the Paw

by Diane Kelly

  “Understood. I’ll cut to the chase. I have no reason to suspect Shelby of any involvement in his disappearance. She appeared to be a devoted wife, and I never noticed her engaging in any inappropriate behavior, harmless or otherwise, with anyone here at the office.”

  Jackson offered the woman a smile. “You knew precisely what I’d ask.”

  Winkleman smiled back. “Spent eight months working as a prosecutor for the Tarrant County District Attorney’s Office back in the late eighties. Figured out pretty quickly that criminal law and courtroom work were far less interesting and glamorous than they make it look on TV. Decided I’d rather sit in a comfy chair behind a desk and handle commercial transactional work.”

  “That’s what you do here? Business law?”

  “Yes. Contracts. Financial matters. Negotiations. The occasional employment matter. I’ll admit I was a little hesitant to hire Shelby as my assistant given that her background was primarily in estate and probate, but she came highly recommended and caught on very quick. She’s a natural.”

  “You’ve known her just three months, correct?”

  The woman’s eyes narrowed slightly and she looked up for a moment as she appeared to be mentally calculating. “That’s correct. She started here in mid- November.”

  “Has Shelby had any visitors to the office?”

  “Just her husband as far as I know. He takes her out to lunch quite often.”

  “Any unusual phone calls?”

  “Not that I’m aware of. Like I said, there’s been nothing to give me any reason to believe Shelby could be involved in anything untoward.”

  Jackson pushed back from the table and stood. I followed suit.

  The detective fished a business card out of her pocket and handed it to the woman. “If you happen to learn anything that might be of use, please give me a call.”

  “I certainly will.”

  * * *

  The sky darkened as we aimed for the theater and the wind picked up, gusts carrying winter’s dead leaves up in to the air and creating dirt devils along the shoulder. Tiny drops of rain left a misty coating on the cruiser’s windshield, and I activated the wipers so we could see better.

  The detective gave me some details and instructions as we drove. “I spoke to the other evening manager briefly last night. All I told him was that Greg seems to have disappeared after he left the theater. I asked if he knew anything about Greg’s whereabouts and whether Greg might have had trouble with anyone. I didn’t mention the blood in the kitchen. Keep that under wraps for now.”

  “Gotcha.” It wasn’t unusual to withhold information in situations like this, to see if someone close to the victim might inadvertently let something slip that they shouldn’t know.

  Soon, we were turning into the parking lot of the theater. Its normally cheery bright yellow sign seemed muted and in desperate denial under the graying skies. We parked and approached the ticket booth, moving quickly to avoid the rain, which had intensified from mere mist to scattered droplets. Brigit crouched as she hustled along, blinking her eyes against the drizzle. The twentyish young woman selling tickets was too immersed in her cell phone to notice us standing at the glass. Jackson reached out and tapped her knuckles on it. Rap-rap.

  Startled, the girl jumped up, juggling her phone in her hands as she reflexively tossed it in the air but managed to catch it. “Sorry! I didn’t see you there. Can I help you?”

  “We need to speak to Beth Moyer.” Jackson pointed to the short-range radio lying on the ticket counter. “Can you ask her to meet us in the lobby?”

  “Okay.” The girl picked up the device and summoned her boss as we moved to make our way inside. “Cool dog!” she called after me.

  “Thanks!” I called back. Brigit wagged her tail as if in agreement. My K-9 partner seemed to understand far more than people might give her credit for.

  Inside, we were met by the enticing smell and pop-pop-pop sound of popcorn popping. On a dreary weekday, few moviegoers had ventured out and the lobby was empty other than a stooped, gray-haired man who appeared to have come out of retirement to hawk Milk Duds and overpriced sodas. Brigit shook herself, sending up a light spray, fluffing up her damp fur, and releasing the scent of wet dog. A moment later, a fortyish blonde woman wearing black pants and a bright yellow blazer with the Take Two logo emerged from one of the long hallways. She spotted us and strode quickly over.

  The woman’s face was drawn in concern. “Hello, Detective Jackson.”

  After the detective introduced Brigit and me, Moyer held out an arm to indicate the door at the back of the lobby. “Let’s talk in my office.” As we made our way across the floor, Moyer addressed a young man wiping down the self-serve soda machine. “Did you restock the napkins yet?”

  “All done,” he said.

  “Good job.” She raised her hand and the two exchanged a congenial high five.

  As the manager typed in the code on the door, Detective Jackson discreetly kissed her fingertips and reached over to apply the kiss to The Rock’s lips. Brigit, on the other hand, shoved her nose into The Rock’s cardboard groin. Maybe this dog isn’t as bright as I’d thought. Brigit’s snout lodged in the crotch of the cutout. She whipped her head side to side to free her nose and I had to grab the display and right it before she could knock it over. I glared down at her and sent her a mental message. Bad girl! She did an up-down wag of her tail, sending me a message, too. I do what instinct tells me to. If you don’t like it, you can bite me.

  Moyer led us into the hallway and unlocked the door to the left. Unlike the assistant managers’ space, which was windowless, Moyer’s office had a wide window in the top half of the wall that separated her office from the lobby. The glass was lined with reflective privacy film so that she could keep an eye on the lobby but nobody could see in. She’d hung her business degree from Texas State University on the wall to our right. Atop her bookshelves sat three photos. One included her with two children who looked to be in the late single digits, one boy and one girl. The other two photos were individual school portraits of the two children, both of them missing a tooth or two. What a couple of cuties. Were they Moyer’s children? Or maybe a niece and nephew? There was no man in what was purportedly a family photo, and a quick glance at her left hand found it bare. No wedding ring.

  “Cute kids,” I said, fishing for information. “Are they yours?”

  She beamed. “Yes. They keep me busy. We’re always running off to a ballet lesson or baseball practice.” She held out a hand to indicate the two theater-style recliners facing her desk. “Please have a seat.” As Moyer circled around her desk and dropped into her desk chair, Brigit lowered her haunches to the floor.

  Once we were all sitting, Jackson got right down to business. “I assume you’ve been notified that Greg Olsen is missing.”

  “Yes. The evening manager called me after you spoke with him last night. I’m completely shocked.” She shook her head slightly and seemingly involuntarily, as if refusing to accept facts. “Do you have any idea where Greg is?”

  “Still trying to make that determination,” Jackson said. “Did you have any contact with Greg after you left the theater at five thirty yesterday?”

  “No,” Moyer said. “He hasn’t contacted me. I’ve tried calling and texting him, but he hasn’t responded.”

  Of course he hadn’t. His cell phone had been found in a puddle of blood on his kitchen floor and taken into evidence. But Beth Moyer didn’t know that.

  “Greg told his wife he thought he might have been followed from the theater to the bank when he made a deposit a couple of weeks ago. Were you aware of the situation?”

  “Yes,” she said. “He mentioned it to me to next day. He said he wasn’t sure he’d been followed, but that a gray car had been behind him the entire drive. It was too far back for him to tell how many people were inside it or what they looked like. It could have been a coincidence, but I instituted some new safety protocols, just in case.”

 
“What kind of protocols?” Jackson asked.

  “Under the old system, the manager working the early shift would get the deposit out of the safe and take it to the bank before opening the theater for the day. That meant they would come into the empty theater alone, and they’d be alone when they went back out to their car with the deposit. Now, we vary the time of day that the deposit is made and we don’t do it unless there’s someone else on site to accompany the manager to their car. I instructed the managers not to get out of their cars and unlock the building in the morning until another staff member has arrived. I’ve also scheduled a staff member to remain on site with them until they lock up for the night.”

  “Safety in numbers,” Jackson said. “Good practices.”

  “We’ve also been taking indirect routes to the bank,” Moyer said. “Switching up which way we go.”

  Another good idea. If someone was lying in wait along the usual, direct route, they wouldn’t spot the manager heading to the bank.

  Jackson continued her inquiry. “After Greg Olsen first reported the car following him, did any of the managers spot it again when they made a subsequent deposit?”

  “No one noticed it. That’s not to say the car wasn’t there, but if it was it wasn’t obvious.”

  She asked the woman many of the same questions she’d asked Shelby the night before. “Are you aware of anyone Greg might have had trouble with? A coworker maybe, or a customer?”

  “Nobody I know of,” Moyer said. “Greg seems like a nice guy, gets along with everyone as far as I can tell. He’s quiet, though, kind of introverted. I can’t say I know him well. He hasn’t worked here long, only since his transfer request came through right before Thanksgiving.”

  “Mr. Olsen requested the transfer?” I asked. After Jackson’s interview with Shelby the night before, I’d come away with the impression that it had been the company’s decision to move Greg down here from Oklahoma. Then again, it was possible I’d misunderstood Shelby or made an incorrect inference.

  “Yes,” Moyer said. “It was a lateral move, not a promotion. When I asked him what brought him down to Texas, he said he and his wife had nothing keeping them in Oklahoma and that they wanted a change of scenery.”

  Understandable, I supposed, though the scenery in Fort Worth and Oklahoma City were essentially the same. Mostly grassland, scrubby trees, and strip malls. Still, each place had its own charms and, even if they weren’t the most scenic cities, both were nice places to call home with affordable housing, low taxes, and friendly people.

  After Moyer answered my question, Jackson resumed her line of questioning. “Has there been any problem here recently? An unruly customer, maybe an argument among the staff?”

  “Nothing out of the ordinary,” Moyer said. “Greg mentioned a young couple with a fussy baby. He’d asked them to leave a movie after other customers complained, but he gave them a refund. He said they seemed frustrated, but they didn’t make a big issue of it.”

  “When was that?”

  “A week or so ago.”

  “Have they been back to the theater?”

  Moyer shrugged. “I have no idea.”

  Having gotten nowhere with her questions so far, Jackson changed her tack. “Has anyone come to see him here at work?”

  “His wife comes by two or three times a week,” Moyer said. “Employees get free movie passes and she uses them to see chick flicks or rom-coms. The two of them come in together on his days off to see movies, too. He’s a real film fan. Knows tons of movie trivia.”

  While it was nice of her to offer information about Greg, her telling us that he was a cinephile wasn’t likely to help the investigation. Jackson seemed to feel the same way. She steered the conversation back to Greg’s associates. “Anybody besides his wife come by to visit with him?”

  “Not that I’ve noticed.”

  Jackson hesitated a moment before saying, “I need to explore all potential angles here, so I’m going to ask some awkward questions, okay?”

  The woman’s body went rigid, but her mouth said, “Okay.”

  Jackson leaned forward. “Do you think Greg could have been involved with someone other than his wife?”

  Moyer’s nose scrunched in skepticism. “Anything’s possible, I suppose, but it would surprise me. He and his wife always look happy together. They even hold hands sometimes. It’s sappy but cute. They’re one of those couples that are joined at the hip.”

  Jackson watched the woman closely. “Do you have feelings for Greg?”

  “Me?” The woman barked a laugh, but then had the class to look sheepish for doing so. “No, not at all. Don’t get me wrong. I think he’s a nice guy, but he’s not my type.”

  “What do you mean?”

  She cringed and bit her lip. “He’s a little too…” She looked up, as if the right word might be found on the ceiling. When she looked down again, she said. “Nerdy, I guess. He’s too nerdy for my taste.”

  “Uh-huh,” Jackson said, gauging the woman with her gaze. “You touched him yesterday. On the shoulder.” Jackson demonstrated by touching my shoulder the same way this woman had touched Greg. “We saw it on the video feed.”

  “I did?” Moyer looked from Jackson to me. I dipped my chin in agreement with Jackson. Moyer’s lower jaw went slack. “If I touched him, it was innocent. I wasn’t even aware of it.”

  “Are you married?” Jackson asked.

  “Not any more,” Moyer said. “My ex and I split up when our youngest was two. We were a mismatch from the start, but realized it too late. We’re civil, though.”

  The detective dug a little more. “Dating?”

  “Some,” Moyer said. “I’m on all the apps. But it’s slim pickings. A lot of losers out there.”

  It was Jackson’s turn to laugh now. “Tell us about it. Those losers keep us cops in business.”

  Jackson and I exchanged a glance and a silent assessment. Both of us sensed Moyer was being sincere. The high five she’d exchanged with her staff earlier told us that she was a relaxed manager not overly concerned about maintaining strict physical boundaries. When she’d patted Greg’s shoulder, it was likely just a small sign of gratitude or a goodbye gesture.

  The detective rose from her chair, pulled a business card from her breast pocket, and lay it on Moyer’s desk. “If you happen to hear from Greg or think of anyone who might have wanted to harm him for any reason, call me immediately.”

  “I will.” Moyer picked up the card and secured it in her pencil drawer. She stood and breathed a shuddering breath. When she spoke again, her voice was strained and squeaky, her eyes bright with alarm. “Is the theater staff in danger? Should I hire security?”

  Jackson gave her a pointed look. “It certainly couldn’t hurt.”

  Moyer led us out of her office. She’d just opened to door to the lobby when another pop-pop-pop sound met our ears. Only this time it wasn’t the popcorn popper.

  TWELVE

  THE SKY IS FALLING

  Brigit

  Brigit pricked up her ears at the new sound coming from overhead. Pop-pop-pop. She recognized the sound and she didn’t like it. It was the same sound she had heard another time, right before a swirling gust of wind had picked up the cruiser she and Megan were cowering in and flipped it over.

  She knew she was expected to be a brave dog and, most times, she was. She knew she could take down any person, so she didn’t fear humans. She also didn’t fear the big dogs at the dog park. Most were all bark and no bite. But she was smart enough to know that even a well-trained dog like her was no match for Mother Nature. She pressed herself tight against Megan’s leg and issued a soft whimper.

  “Don’t worry, girl,” Megan said, reaching down to stroke her. “It’ll be okay.”

  THIRTEEN

  ICE, ICE, BABY

  The Slasher

  He stood at the window, watching the hail hammer the hotel and the cars in the parking lot. The pop-pop-pop of the hail hitting the building reminded him vagu
ely of popcorn popping, while the tink-tink-tink as it impacted the vehicles took him back to the gun range and the sound of spent cartridges hitting the concrete. He wondered whether the car he’d left in the park had been found yet, whether it, too, was being peppered with chunks of ice from the sky. He’d kept the television turned on all day, watched the early morning local news and paid attention to the teasers. There’d been only a brief blurb in the reports. The anchor asked viewers to keep an eye out for the black Jetta, noted the license plate number, and said the car’s owner, Greg Olsen, might have been the victim of foul play.

  Might have? Sounded like the police hadn’t gotten very far in their investigation. They surely didn’t work as quickly in real life as they did on TV and in the movies. He hoped they’d speed things up. The sooner they reached a dead end and the case went cold, the sooner he could get out of here.

  FOURTEEN

  RIDING OUT THE STORM

  Megan

  Although we wanted to keep the investigation moving along as quickly as possible, it would be dangerous to venture out in the hailstorm. Detective Jackson and I stood behind the double glass doors of the theater, watching helplessly as the hail fell. The accumulation on the ground showed that the hail was increasing in size, from dime to quarter. While the hail scale began with comparisons to coins—dimes, nickels, quarters—at a certain point, it switched to sports balls: golf balls, baseballs, softballs. With the rapid changes in climate, we might soon experience our first bowling ball–sized hailstone. Heaven help us.

  Brigit whimpered again, the noise making her nervous. She could use a distraction. “Come with me, girl.” I led her over to the snack bar where I ordered a large popcorn and two small drinks. “Throw in a box of Hot Tamales, too.” In for a penny, in for a pound. I only hoped this mid-morning snack wouldn’t pack the pounds onto my backside. I had wedding gown shopping to do. Then again, maybe I could get a design with lots of ruffles to cover my butt.