“Makes sense.” Kyra shivered. “Can we go now? I’m getting hungry. I always work up an appetite roller-skating.”
“Sure,” I said, sweeping the flashlight in an arc one more time. Nothing leaped out at me. Well, what had I been expecting? A monogrammed flask dropped on the ground and overlooked by the cops? A collection of lipstick-stained cigarette butts? A library book that could be traced back to the borrower? I laughed at myself inwardly and trotted to catch up with Kyra, already halfway back to the Miata.
After we ate dinner and Kyra left, I went to bed, setting my alarm clock for midnight. I planned to return to Fernglen and visit with the night-duty officer for a bit, determined to start off on the right foot as acting director of security. If I got chosen to replace Captain Woskowicz, I wanted all the guards, especially those who worked the night shift, to know I valued what they did. Fubar objected with a startled “Mrrow!” when the alarm went off at midnight and I stifled it with a groan. Curling up in the warm spot I had vacated, Fubar watched through slitted eyes as I dressed in jeans and a sweater. “Tell me I’m being a good boss,” I suggested. He closed his eyes.
I parked in the deserted lot and waved at the nearest functioning camera atop a light post. Sunday and Monday were Edgar’s nights off; Victoria Dallabetta was working the midshift.
If she was in the office, rather than patrolling, she’d see me, I hoped, and not be startled when I came in. Using my key to unlock the mall door, I slid inside and locked it behind me. Security officers didn’t have keys to the individual mall stores—the tenants hung on to those—but we had keys for the main doors, garages, and elevators.
My footsteps seemed louder in the semigloom of the mall at night, a gloom heightened by Quigley’s insistence on using the lowest possible wattage bulbs for night-time illumination. My refrigerator bulb provided more light. The escalators and fountain were turned off, reducing the ambient noise, so the squeak of my athletic shoes on the tile echoed strangely. I turned into our hall just as Dallabetta emerged from the ladies’ room, and she jumped when she saw me.
“Jesus Christ! You startled me.” A stocky woman ten years older than me with short, dark hair, Vic had been a Fernglen security officer for five or six years, and I suspected she resented my being made acting director over her. The suspicion deepened when she pushed through the glass doors into the office, saying, “Come to check up, have you? Well, I’m here, doing my job. Sorry to disappoint.” Plopping into a chair, she turned her back on me to ostentatiously study the camera screens.
“Actually,” I said, refusing to respond to her snippiness, “I just wanted to bring you some coffee”—I placed the lidded cup I’d brought from home on the desk at her elbow—“and cookies.” I pulled a baggie containing a half dozen chocolate chip cookies from my purse. “I know the midshift can get dreary.”
“I’m on a diet,” she said.
I took a couple deep breaths, determined not to react to her hostility, and seated myself beside her. “I know when I worked mids in the military, I was grateful for anything that broke up the monotony.”
“You want gratitude?” Vic swiveled to face me. “Fine, I’m grateful. Consider my monotony broken.” She worked her lips in and out. “You should know that I’m going to apply for the director of security job when they advertise it.”
“Great,” I said. What else could I say? “I’m going to throw my name in the hat, too.”
“Like I didn’t know that.” She turned back to the monitors, carefully studying a whole lot of nothing. “Quigley might have tapped you to fill in, but the hiring decision will be made by the whole board, and they’ll have to pay attention to my qualifications.”
I didn’t ask what her qualifications were, sure she’d see that as an attempt to disparage her or make an end run around her for the job. I rose. “In the meantime,” I said, “I hope you’ll feel like you can bring issues to me. I know I’m just in the job temporarily, but I want to do it right for Fernglen and all of us on the security team.”
Vic’s gaze slid sideways to me. “I can’t afford ‘issues.’ I’ve got a daughter to support.”
“I didn’t know you had a daughter. How old is she?”
“Fourteen going on forty-two,” she said, her face relaxing almost into a smile for the first time since I’d arrived. “Josie Rae. You got kids?”
“Me?” The question startled me. “I’ve never even been married.”
“Me either.” Vic turned back to the monitors, the fragile accord between us broken after mere seconds by my careless tongue.
“Well, good night,” I said lamely after an awkward pause. I left the cookies and moved toward the door. When Vic didn’t respond, I left.
Maybe I should pass up the director of security job and double my efforts to get on with a police department, I thought, walking slowly through the empty halls. My knee had started to ache. Policing was what I really wanted to do. The pay raise that went with the director of security position wasn’t enough to make the personnel headaches worth it. I tried to put the brief interlude out of my head. I was tired and cranky and it was one thirty in the morning—not the best time to be making career decisions. As I neared my car, grateful for the chilly air that blew some of the cobwebs from my head, a movement on my right made me spin.
Jay Callahan approached me, his hands held shoulder high, a grin on his face. “Fancy meeting you here.” He wore a black leather jacket and jeans and looked… dangerous.
“I should have known,” I said sourly. “I suppose there’s no point in my asking what you’re doing here at this hour.”
His grin grew broader. “Someone got up on the wrong side of bed this morning. Or haven’t you been to bed yet?”
“I’ve been and now I’m going back.” I opened my door.
“I don’t suppose that’s an invitation?”
I gave him a look. Not that the idea didn’t have some appeal.
“I heard about Captain Woskowicz.” His expression sobered. “Two mall-related shooting deaths in a week… seems a tad unusual. Makes a good case for gun control.”
Something in his voice made me look at him closely. The streetlamp several parking spaces over cast a fitful glow on his face, but I felt, rather than saw, his air of alertness or expectation. “Interested in guns, are you?” I asked.
“Oh, no more than the next guy.” He came closer, and I was absurdly conscious of the breadth of his chest under a dark sweater and the thigh muscles outlined by his jeans. He reached a hand toward me, but just then the squeal of tires brought our heads around in time to see a Cadillac Escalade burst out of the garage and tear toward the exit. Moments later, a midsized sedan followed it, catching enough air over the speed bumps to score high points in a snowboarding competition.
“What the—” The incident had happened so fast, I didn’t even have time to note how many people were in the vehicles or get license plates—not that I could’ve read them at this distance and in this light. I slewed toward Jay, who stood with the slight breeze riffling his hair, his posture relaxed after his initial stiffening when the cars barreled out. I narrowed my eyes. “So that’s what you were doing here.”
“Me? What?” He assumed a look of injured innocence.
I had run into Mr. Jay Callahan in the garage before at strange hours, apparently observing meetings between unknown people who remained in their parked cars. “Gimme.” I beckoned with my hand.
“Give you what?” He slid his hand into his pocket.
“Aha! I know you’ve got the license numbers. I want to ask the police to run them.”
“What makes you think—oh, all right.” He pulled a small notebook from his pocket and ripped out a page with two license plate numbers, one Virginia and one Florida, on it. “They won’t tell you anything.”
I felt a warm glow at his implicit acknowledgment that he was more than a businessman trying to make a go of a cookie franchise at the mall. He trusted me enough to let down his guard slightly, although I
knew better than to expect him to brief me on exactly what kind of an operation he was involved with. As I reached for the page, his hand caught mine. Startled, I met his eyes. “EJ—” A rueful smile curved his mouth as he hesitated. He seemed to think better of what he was about to say. “I know you won’t—”
“I won’t tell anyone you like to lurk in the mall parking garage after midnight writing down license plate numbers. It’s kind of an American suburban version of train spotting,” I said.
He laughed softly and released my hand. I still felt the warm imprint of his fingers. “If you hear anything about guns or weapons, either the ones used in the murders or others, will you let me know?”
“If I can.”
“Fair enough.” He bent and pressed a swift kiss on my lips. Before I could react, he was striding away.
I got into the Miata, thinking hard, and started for home. Jay Callahan had kissed me. True, it wasn’t much of a kiss, and I didn’t know why he’d done it, but he’d kissed me. It’d been… I couldn’t remember how many months it’d been since a man kissed me. Bad sign. I fought the temptation to dwell on the kiss and what it might or might not mean. I had more important things to ponder.
Soon after he took over the Lola’s stand in the food court, I’d made Jay as a law-enforcement agent of some kind, or maybe an investigative reporter. He knew too much about police procedure, and he’d run to help me when a pair of clever murderers started shooting at me near the fountain some weeks back. He’d brandished a gun and yelled, “Stop! Police!” He’d told me later that he only said that to scare the shooters, but I hadn’t bought it.
I drummed my fingers on the steering wheel. His interest in weapons made me wonder if he might be an Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms—ATF—agent. Could someone be running guns and using Fernglen as—what? A delivery point? Or maybe he was FBI working a terrorist sting of some kind and had intelligence about a weapons cache the terrorists were planning to use. A shiver skittered up my back. I’d grown complacent since giving up my uniform and badge, my gun and handcuffs. Being a mall cop was dulling my instincts. Where I used to patrol in a state of high alert, ready for small arms fire or a suicide bomber, now I chatted my way around Fernglen, keeping half an eye out for vandals, pickpockets, or shoplifters. Was it possible that a weapons smuggling ring was operating at Fernglen and I hadn’t caught so much as a whiff of it?
Grinding my teeth as I pulled up in front of my house, I locked the car and went in, almost tripping over Fubar, who pounced at my feet and clawed at my laces. With a laugh, I scooped him up and carried him into the bedroom. When I loosed him on the bed, he promptly leaped down and headed back to the kitchen. Moments later the whisk of his cat door told me he preferred prowling to sleeping. Maybe I’d do some prowling tomorrow, I thought sleepily, sliding under the covers, and see what kind of prey I could scare up at the mall.
Twelve
Monday was technically my second day off, but I arrived at Fernglen only slightly later than usual despite my midnight visit to the mall. Today was the first meeting of the self-defense class and I needed to set up for it. Harold Wasserman was already in the office, holding a mug of what smelled like peppermint tea.
“Casual-dress day?” he greeted me, eyeing my slim-fitting red sweatpants and loose tee shirt.
“I’m teaching a self-defense class.”
“I saw the flyer. Not a bad idea. Lobbying to be the head cheese, huh?” He grinned in a friendly way when he said it and I smiled back, relieved he wasn’t as against the idea of my becoming the director of security as Vic Dallabetta was.
“Are you applying for the job?”
“Not me.” He waggled his eyebrows. “I don’t need the headaches. This job suits me just fine—gets me out of the house, puts a little change in my pocket, and doesn’t push my blood pressure into the stratosphere. I had enough of that in my first career.” He gulped some tea. “I quit smoking again, and the mint in this”—he lifted the mug—“is supposed to help with nicotine cravings.”
“Really?” Harold had quit smoking at least ten times since I’d worked here and never made it more than sixty days or so. I knew because we ran a pool each time to guess how long he’d hold out. I hoped he would succeed this time. “Good luck. Anything going on?” I nodded at the monitors.
“Quiet as the grave.” He winced. “Speaking of which, we got an email from the mall manager’s office saying Captain Woskowicz’s memorial service is tomorrow morning at nine. Mr. Quigley encourages ‘as many employees as possible’ to attend.”
I nodded. I would certainly go. I hadn’t much liked Captain Woskowicz, but I didn’t think that mattered. Paying my respects by attending the service was the right thing to do. Since the service was occurring before the stores opened, I could probably get by with keeping only one guard on duty during that time, so most of the security staff could pay their respects if they wanted to.
“I’ll hold the fort,” Harold volunteered, as if reading my mind. “I’m getting to the age where I go to too damn many funerals as it is.”
Segwaying to the Bean Bonanza, I bought coffee and then glided to the open area fronting the food court where Quigley had said I could hold the self-defense class. The maintenance team had already set out a series of mats the mall used when visiting gymnastics groups or cheerleaders performed for customers. I took off my shoes and poked at one of the mats with a toe. Soft enough for our purposes. It wasn’t like we were going to be practicing judo throws. At this hour, the area was virtually deserted, with only a mall walker or two striding past, caught up in conversation with a buddy or deafened by earbuds delivering up-tempo music. A lone janitor swished a mop at the far end of the food court, and I waved at her.
I glanced at my watch just as Grandpa Atherton and Joel Rooney came around the corner. Even though Joel was younger by almost sixty years, Grandpa looked much fitter and tougher in his black tracksuit, with his shoulders thrown back and eyes automatically noting all the details of his environment. His white hair and wrinkles proclaimed his age, but his bearing told would-be robbers that they might be taking on more than they could handle if they picked on him. Joel, in baggy knee-length shorts, had his hands jammed in the kangaroo pocket of his gray hoodie. With his brown hair tousled, he looked half asleep and would have been an easy target for even a third-rate mugger. Grandpa gave me a vigorous hug, and Joel half lifted a hand in a little wave.
“Nothing like hand-to-hand combat to start the day off on the right foot,” Grandpa said. “It’s almost as good as sex.” Putting a hand to his slim waist, he stretched to the side. Joel’s brows had climbed toward his bangs at the word “combat” (or maybe at the idea of an octogenarian starting the day with a quickie), but after a moment’s hesitation, he did the same. A couple of women straggled up next, and within five minutes we had a ragtag collection of students dressed in everything from coordinated velour lounging wear (Starla from Starla’s Styles) to shorts or sweatpants (most of the women), to jeans and high-heeled pumps (Nina Wertmuller, Captain Woskowicz’s first wife). I offered my condolences, even though two wives had succeeded her.
When she saw my gaze light on her impractical shoes, Nina said, “It’s not like a rapist is going to wait until I’m wearing workout gear to attack, you know. I dress like this all the time, so I figured it’d be smart to practice in what I’ll be wearing if I’m ever attacked.”
She had a fair point, but I made her take off the stilettos, not wanting her to break an ankle or gouge holes into the mats. The two young women from Rock Star Accessories trotted up a couple minutes late, balancing Starbucks cups, which they set down at the mat’s edge; they made the group an even ten. Grandpa and Joel were the only men. When everyone had removed their shoes and found a spot on the mats, I introduced myself and started with a question. “What is always your best self-defense option, when feasible?”
No one spoke at first, but then I heard a few half-hearted answers: “Kick him in the balls” and “Go for the eyes.”<
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“Nope.” I waited until I had everyone’s attention. “Run away. If you can get away from an attacker, do so. Fighting is the last resort. Your attackers are almost always going to be men, and they’re probably going to be bigger and stronger than you are. And they might be armed. Not good odds. So, if you have a chance to run, take it. It is not wimpy or cowardly to run. It’s smart.”
Some of the women shifted uneasily, their eyes wide, and Grandpa nodded decisively. Joel looked unconvinced. I talked for another fifteen minutes about how self-defense starts before an attacker ever appears, with simple precautions like not walking in dangerous neighborhoods alone or after dark, checking the backseat of a car before getting into it, and keeping home and car doors locked. A few mall walkers glanced at our group curiously as they passed, but continued with their laps.
“Well, duh,” Nina Wertmuller said when I paused. “I mean, every woman with a scrap of survival instinct does those things.”
The self-conscious and embarrassed expressions several of the students exchanged seemed to argue against that, as did the stats about women as victims of violence, but I didn’t dispute her. I raised my brows, inviting her to go on.
“When are you going to show us something real? Like how to put down an attacker.” She folded her arms under her plump breasts. Her abrasive attitude was wearing, and I caught myself thinking I couldn’t totally blame Captain Woskowicz for preferring Paula.
“Right now,” I said. “Joel, will you help me?”
Apprehension flitted across his features, but he came forward gamely to stand in front of me. “Grab my wrist,” I said.
With a sheepish smile, he reached out and encircled my wrist loosely with his big hand. With a simple roll of my wrist, I broke free. “No, grab it like you mean it.”
This time, he braced himself and clamped down on my wrist.
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