All Sales Fatal

by Laura Disilverio

“What?”

  She shot me a triumphant look. “Our divorce wasn’t going to be final until this Friday. So if Nina or Paula think they’re going to get a dime from Wosko’s estate, they’ve got another think coming!”

  I fell silent, digesting this piece of news. If true, Aggie was clearly going to be the one to benefit financially from Woskowicz’s death. And she was the one who’d announced early on that he was dead… I studied the short redhead, wondering if she’d had anything to do with his murder. Surely the police had looked into her whereabouts for Wednesday night?

  “So what did you want to see me about?” I asked.

  “I need to get into Wosko’s office,” she said airily.

  “Why?”

  Glaring at me, she hiked her purse higher on her shoulder. “Because.”

  I stood unmoving, arms crossed over my chest.

  “Oh, all right,” she grumbled. “I don’t see how it’s any of your business, but I need to find a key.”

  “What kind of key?”

  She answered me with an uncompromising stare, lips thinned into a straight line.

  Shrugging, I said, “It doesn’t matter, because there are no keys in there.”

  Joel returned and I motioned him to the monitors with a nod, then led Aggie down the short hall to the director of security’s office.

  “How do you know it’s not here?” Aggie said, stopping inside the door to survey the small room.

  “The police have searched it,” I said, “and I’ve spent a fair amount of time in here since…” I carefully didn’t mention that Paula and I had ransacked the room an hour earlier. “Maybe Captain Woskowicz kept whatever key you’re looking for on his key ring. In which case, the police probably have it.” Unless the murderer stole Woskowicz’s keys. My eyes widened. Of course he did. That’s how he got in to search Woskowicz’s house without leaving signs of a break-in. I reconsidered. Knowing that both Paula and Aggie were looking for something, and Nina, too, for all I knew, made me wonder if it had been one of them who searched the house.

  “Well, I’ll have a look-see, if you don’t—”

  I stepped in front of Aggie as she prepared to tear the office apart, dismantling the desk and ripping up the flooring, if her expression was anything to go by. “You’re going to have to take my word for it, Aggie. The only key I found was to a file cabi—”

  “How do you know it wasn’t for a safe-deposit box?” She looked ready to mug me on the spot and turn my pockets inside out.

  “Because it fit the file cabinet drawer,” I said, pointing.

  “Oh.”

  “If I come across the key elsewhere”—I gestured to the outer office—“I’ll be sure to let you know.”

  “Me,” she insisted. “Not Nina or Paula. Me. It’s mine.”

  She sounded like one of the seagulls in Finding Nemo: “Mine. Mine. Mine-mine-mineminemine.”

  “Or maybe I should turn it over to the police,” I said.

  “You’d better not.” Her jaw thrust forward, and despite her shortness and her cute pug nose, she looked tough.

  “What do you do?” I asked, curious.

  She reared back slightly, startled by the question. “Do? I sell cars. At Dealin’ Dwight’s Used Car Supercenter. You’ve probably seen our ads on TV.”

  Hadn’t everyone? They came on every fifteen minutes (or so it seemed) and featured Dealin’ Dwight himself—a hearty-looking man who bore more than a passing resemblance to former senator and actor Fred Thompson—and a herd of llamas. I’d never yet figured out the connection between the llamas and used cars.

  “If you ever need a new—gently used—car, come on down and I can set you up. We’re between here and Richmond, just off I-95.” She handed me a card. It read “Delia ‘Aggie’ S. Woskowicz, Senior Sales Associate.” I saw that, like Paula, she had retained Woskowicz’s name; I guess it made sense if she was still legally married to him.

  “Will do,” I said, ushering her back toward the front. She cast one longing look over her shoulder but allowed me to see her out with one more reminder about contacting her if I found any stray keys around the office.

  “What was that all about?” Joel asked as soon as Aggie departed.

  “I’m not sure,” I said, staring out the doors long after she was out of sight. I told him about Paula’s looking for a will and Aggie’s wanting to search for a safe-deposit key.

  “Maybe the will is in the safe-deposit box,” he said reasonably.

  “Could be,” I said, “but Aggie didn’t seem much interested in a will. She said she’s still legally married to Woskowicz, that their divorce wasn’t quite final.”

  “Really?” Joel looked disapproving. “Woskowicz certainly carried on like he was single.”

  “Yeah, well.” I suspected that was Woskowicz’s modus operandi, single or married. If what Paula said was true, he’d taken up with Aggie before divorcing her.

  “I wouldn’t do that,” Joel said.

  I smiled at him. “Of course not.”

  Joel hid his pleasure by pretending to study the camera screens. “Do you think she killed him to get whatever’s in the safe-deposit box?”

  “Maybe.”

  “I’ll bet it’s cash. Lots and lots of cash.”

  The odor of coffee sludge on the verge of burning wafted through the room. Crossing to the coffeemaker, I unplugged it. “It’s probably papers: birth certificate, will, other documents. Isn’t that mostly what people keep in safe-deposit boxes?”

  “Maybe it’s jewels,” Joel said, ignoring my prosaic interjection.

  I gave him a look.

  “Okay,” he conceded, “Captain W wasn’t a jewelry kind of guy.”

  “Although I bet the exes were jewelry kinds of gals.”

  “Maybe it’s videos of him and her,” Joel said, nodding in the direction of the departed Aggie. “You know.” He waggled his brows.

  “Joel!” Despite my surprise that Joel had suggested it—he came across as sweet and slightly naïve for a twenty-three-year-old—it wasn’t a bad thought. “You could be on to something there.”

  My gaze had strayed idly to the screens as I talked, and now I leaned forward to study two girls exiting a teen clothing store. “It’s her!”

  “Who?”

  “See that girl?” I pointed to the Hispanic teen who’d been with Celio the day he got shot.

  Joel peered at the screen. “Yeah?”

  “Don’t lose her. I’ve got to talk to her.” I was halfway out the door on the words. “Keep me posted on where she goes.” I tapped my radio.

  “Got it,” Joel said.

  Luckily, she was on this level, so I didn’t have to waste time in the elevator. When I Segwayed to the store she’d been leaving, she was nowhere in sight. “Joel?” I clicked my radio.

  “They went into FaceNook,” Joel said.

  FaceNook sold cosmetics and hair products and was across the hall from where I stood. Zipping across the little bridge that spanned the gap between the two hallways, I paused outside FaceNook and peered through the window. Sure enough, the girl and her friend were experimenting with eye shadows in front of a round magnifying mirror while a clerk hovered at their elbows. I watched them for a moment, unobserved. The girl who’d been with Celio was looking on as her friend, a tall teen who held herself with a confidence lacking in the shorter girl, smoothed eye shadow from lash line to brow. Each had a couple of shopping bags at her feet. Leaving the Segway outside, I walked in.

  The clerk, a fortyish woman I’d chatted with before, called, “Hi, EJ.”

  The two girls looked up and wariness settled on their faces, like fog on a pond.

  “I just wanted to chat with these young ladies for a moment,” I said, aiming a friendly smile at the teens.

  Apparently, they read my expression as something more sinister because the taller girl yelled, “Run, Eloísa!” The girl I’d seen with Celio snatched up her bags and darted around the end of a counter, knocking over a display of l
ipsticks, which clattered to the tiled floor and rolled in all directions. Clear of the counter, she bolted through the door. Her friend stooped to pick up some lipsticks but thought better of it, straightening to follow Eloísa. Leaving the sputtering clerk to corral the lipsticks, I dashed after the girls.

  Hopping on the Segway, I sped after them, clicking on my radio. “A little help, please.”

  “What?” Joel sounded confused. “Oh. Just passing Merlin’s Cave, looking like they’re trying to set an Olympic record. What’d you say to them?”

  Ignoring the question, I leaned forward to get more speed out of the Segway.

  “They split up,” Joel said over the radio. “One headed for the garage, and the other went into Nordstrom.”

  “Who went where?” I really wanted to catch up with Celio’s friend; the other girl held less interest.

  A moment of silence had me almost humming with impatience. “I’m not sure,” Joel finally admitted. “They both had dark hair and were wearing jeans. It’s not like I’m working with high-def here.”

  “I know,” I said, squelching my frustration. Eeny-meeny-miney-mo. I headed for Nordstrom.

  Fourteen

  Lily-scented perfume assailed me as I crossed into Nordstrom. A half dozen cosmetics counters lay in front of me, laden with face products worth as much as the annual budget of a midsized city. Dodging a woman who wanted to spritz me with the perfume, I caught up with a clerk and asked if she’d seen a dark-haired teen in a hurry. She pointed wordlessly toward the lingerie department. I knew an exit door was on the far side of the bras and pajamas, so I zipped along as quickly as I could. The Segway gave me a little extra height as I scanned the department, able to see over the revolving racks and displays. One middle-aged woman examined undergarments with enough support to hold up the Brooklyn Bridge. No teenager. Damn. She must have made it to the parking lot.

  I cut diagonally through lingerie and out the row of glass doors leading to the parking lot. Looking both ways, I didn’t see anyone who resembled the girl I was following. Possibly she was already in her car, if she had one. Or… I spun the Segway and returned to the dressing room between lingerie and women’s evening wear. It was the only one on the route the clerk had indicated the girl had taken. There was no attendant in sight, so I dismounted and walked through an open doorway. A chime sounded. The dressing room doors, unfortunately, went to the floor, so I couldn’t peer beneath them and figure out which ones were occupied.

  “Eloísa?” I called softly. I began to walk the length of the dressing room, toward a three-way mirror at the end. Doors lined both sides of the narrow hall. Rustling sounds and the clink of hangers came from behind several of them. With a sigh, I turned the handle on the first door. Empty. Ditto for the second and third doors. The fourth room held a skinny woman who clutched a gray chiffon gown to her chest when she spotted me.

  “Sorry,” I apologized.

  “Well! Cameras in here to prevent shoplifting are bad enough, but this is ridiculous,” the woman said as I closed the door.

  The next two doors yielded nothing but piles of discarded clothes on the floor and slung on the bench. A woman carrying an armload of bathing suits and resort wear emerged from the next door before I reached it, stepping past me with a muttered, “Excuse me.” I envied her the cruise I imagined she was shopping for. Hesitating at the final door, marked with a “Handicapped” placard, I heard nothing from within. My fingers closed over the handle, and I eased the door open an inch. It promptly slammed shut, clearly propelled by a well-placed kick or shoulder.

  “Eloísa,” I said, “this is crazy. I just want to talk with you for a couple of minutes. About Celio. You’re not in trouble.”

  “I’m not?” The door muffled the voice, but I heard tension and doubt.

  “Absolutely not,” I said. “I’m trying to figure out what happened to Celio. If he was your friend, I’d think you’d want to know, too.”

  “I don’t know anything,” the girl said.

  “Would you please come out?”

  The middle-aged woman emerged from the other dressing room, garbed in the gray gown, which did nothing for her light eyes and mousy hair. “Teenage daughter, huh?” she asked in the voice of experience.

  Did I really look old enough at thirty-one to be the mother of a teenager? Involuntarily, I glanced at my reflection in the three-way mirror.

  “Don’t you wish you could lock ’em in a closet—with a muzzle on—from the time they hit adolescence until they’re about twenty-three?” the woman asked, edging past me to stand in front of the mirror. “When my Suzanne was seventeen, she tried on fifty-four dresses before finding one she wanted to wear to the prom. Fifty-four! Why, I only tried on three to find my wedding gown.” She turned first one way, then the other, craning her neck to view her backside. “Does this dress make me look fat?”

  “Not at all,” I replied truthfully. Drab, yes. Fat, no.

  Satisfied, she returned to her dressing room, and I knocked on Eloísa’s door once more. “I’m not going away.”

  Apparently, she believed me because ninety seconds later the door opened. The teenager slid out through the crack, all long denimed legs, dark brown hair, and wary eyes. But she wasn’t the girl I’d seen with Celio. She was Eloísa’s friend from FaceNook, the one who’d told her to run. “You’re not Eloísa.” Master of the obvious, that’s me.

  “No.” The girl tossed her hair, clearly pleased at having put one over on me.

  “I’m EJ Ferris.” I extended my hand. “What’s your name?”

  Caught off guard, the girl stared at me. “I’m really not in trouble?” She had a soft Virginia accent that was disarming.

  Her obviously guilty conscience made me wonder what the girls had been up to. Shoplifting? Playing hooky? Some of the local schools were on spring break, but not all. “I told you, you weren’t.”

  Somewhat satisfied, she grasped my outstretched hand in a weak, brief handshake. “I’m Gilda.” She pulled her hand back and thrust it into her jeans pocket.

  “Pretty name.”

  “What do you want with Eloísa?” she asked, curiosity replacing suspicion in her eyes.

  I saw no reason not to be honest with her. “I saw her with Celio Arriaga here at Fernglen the day he was killed. I want to talk to her, see if she remembers anything from that day that might help the police figure out who shot him.”

  “She doesn’t.” Gilda spoke positively.

  “How do you know?”

  “Because Enrique says so.”

  “Who’s Enrique?”

  “The leader of the Niños Malos. What he says goes.” A certain stiffness to her face made me think she wasn’t totally in sync with Enrique.

  “And you’re part of the gang, so you have to do what he says?”

  Gilda shook her head vehemently, swishing her hair against her shoulders. “Not me. I stay away from that gang shit. But Eloísa was tight with Celio, and, well…”

  “Enrique won’t find out if Eloísa talks to me,” I promised, passing her a business card with my phone number on it. “If she cared about Celio—”

  “Cared about him? She loved that poser.” Gilda rolled her eyes.

  “You didn’t like him?”

  “I didn’t not like him, but getting mixed up with the Niños is a bad idea. Eloísa didn’t see it, though. Celio was her kryptonite.”

  “He was her boyfriend?”

  She gave me the look all teenagers have perfected, the one that laments the stupidity of everyone over eighteen. “Nah. Her cousin.”

  “What’s her last name?”

  The talkative shopper popped out of her dressing room, the gray chiffon draped over her arm. “That looks great on you,” she told Gilda in an affirming way. “You should buy it.” She left.

  The woman’s appearance, or maybe my question, disrupted the tenuous rapport between Gilda and me. “These are my jeans, and I’ve had this sweater for four years,” Gilda said, looking down at her
attire. “I’ve gotta go.”

  Sensing that pushing her at this point would only make her less likely to pass my words along to Eloísa, I walked with her to the dressing room entrance. “Thanks for talking to me,” I said. “Please tell Eloísa what I said.”

  She ducked her head in a funny little bob that could have been acknowledgment, agreement, or teen for “leave me the hell alone.” She strode toward the exit without looking back.

  I knew I should call Detective Helland with what I’d learned—both from Paula and Aggie, and from Gilda. I was reluctant to sic the police on Eloísa, though, in case they were ham-handed about finding her and exposed her to Enrique’s punishment. I compromised by calling from the office and telling Helland that Captain Woskowicz had a safe-deposit box that might hold something of interest. “And I don’t know if you knew,” I added, “but he was still legally married to his third wife, Aggie.”

  “Huh,” Helland said without inflection. “She gave a different address.”

  I smiled into the phone, pleased to have one-upped him. “I guess they’ve been separated for a while. If she inherits his estate, that would give her a good motive for killing him.”

  “Assuming his estate’s worth anything,” Helland said discouragingly.

  “Did you get anything useful from the gun? The one from the office?” I slipped the question in, hoping he might feel motivated to share with me since I’d given him a useful bit of information.

  Apparently not. Ignoring the question completely, he said, “If that’s all?”

  Before he could hang up, I caved and told him about Eloísa, unable to square it with my conscience to keep possibly important information about a murder from the police. “You can’t just barge in and interrogate her, though,” I said. “She’s afraid of some low-life named Enrique, the big kahuna—”

  “Mero mero.”

  “—of the Niños Malos. I don’t know her last name, but she’s Celio’s cousin.”

  There was a pause from Helland’s end of the line. I expected him to let loose with some comment about me presuming to tell the police how to do their job. Finally, he said, “The bullet the coroner pulled out of Celio matched the gun we found in Woskowicz’s office. That information is not for public consumption.” He hung up.