“You’re the best,” she said, positioning the privacy sheet so I could turn onto my back for the rest of the massage and the uncharacteristic stretch of silence from L’Raine that followed.
“Hey,” I said as she finished massaging my left leg and moved on to my right. “If you want, I can also let Griff know whatever it was you were going to tell him while I’m at it.”
She turned toward the counter behind her and spritzed the air with an essential oil called Confidence. “You will tell him the info came from me, right?”
“Absolutely,” I said as the room filled with the scent of orange and rosemary.
“It’s not like I really know all that much …”
“Sometimes the smallest detail turns out to be key.”
“Well, I did hear Laila’s drink was poisoned.”
Wasn’t the means by which the Ephedra was delivered supposed to be as much a secret as the identity of the temporary primary suspect? “From who?”
“The manager at Whimsies.”
“Shoshanna?”
“She and Hailey were both alone with Laila’s drink at some point,” she said. “So the police were all over them asking questions.”
I tried to release my relieved sigh slowly enough so L’Raine, now running the stone along the outer side of my shin, wouldn’t notice. “And?”
“They both passed lie detector tests.”
“Is that all you heard?”
“That, and Andy supposedly added some new mystery person to his betting pool.”
I had to stop myself from bolting upright. “What do you mean?”
“He and Tara claim to know of some big suspect who will come as a major shock if and when he or she is arrested.”
My guts started churning like a cement mixer.
“Apparently they’re supposedly going to give hints about who it is, to stir up the betting pool even more.”
“Did you happen to hear when the hints will start?” I somehow choked out.
“Any time now.”
Seventeen aromatherapy-scented, Didgeridoo-accompanied, Zen-less minutes passed with excruciating slowness before I was free of the massage room and rushing toward the locker room.
Specifically, to my phone.
As L’Raine worked each of my fingers and palms and massaged what felt like every tendon and muscle fiber up and down my arms, all I could think about was Andy and Tara.
Were they about to sell me down the river for a crime they’d committed?
Had the two of them been waiting for the right moment or the right person to take the fall and I’d stepped right into their murderous plans? Certainly Tara learned who I was as soon as Laila had me dragged out of Eternally 21. Had she capitalized on my morning’s altercation by jumping into action, having Andy follow me to the food court so we could “accidentally” bump trays, mix up drinks, and let me know Laila had an eating disorder? She’d been so apologetic and helpful afterwards, how could I not come up to the store? Why wouldn’t I complain to Eternally 21 corporate via email and implicate myself that much more as a result? My skin bristled thinking how I’d not only run all over the mall listening in on conversations like a guilty murderer, but spent a second day off-course “investigating” Dan Mitchell, Nina Marino, Richard the regional manager, and his wife—all on Andy’s bad advice.
Had they then gone and reported all they “knew” about my questionable actions—from my warning to Laila that she’d pay for this to my most recent trip to chat up Tara?
I had to tell Griff everything I’d heard so he could help me stop those two before things went from worse to jail-cell worse. My hands shook as I twisted the key into the tumbler and opened the locker door, fumbled through my purse for my phone, and located an out of the way corner behind the showers where I could speak with some semblance of privacy.
My cell rang in my hand as I began to dial.
The caller ID showed SOUTH HIGHLANDS VALLEY MALL.
“Hello?” I answered.
“It’s Griff,” he said in a clipped, muffled, almost unidentifiable whisper.
“I was just calling you,” I whispered back. “Andy and Tara—”
“Not over the phone,” he said.
“So you know?”
“I know things are bigger, worse than I thought.”
“Meaning what?” I said.
“Meet me in fifteen minutes.”
“Where?”
“North side maintenance corridor.”
A cold sweat broke out across my chest. “You mean in the mall?”
“There’s a bench near Chico’s.” His whisper was nearly inaudible. “Don’t let anyone who knows you see you.”
“But—”
“Just get down here,” he said. “Your future depends on it.”
32. Always check coupons to determine if they are store specific.
TWENTY-FOUR
I PULLED INTO A spot in the B-7 area of the mall garage, grabbed one of the boy’s baseball caps from the back seat, and slid out of the car. Wearing my stay-at-home jeans, smudged makeup, and massage oily hair, at least I felt incognito enough to heed Griff’s warning—by doing exactly the opposite of Anastasia’s warning.
Head down, I ran across the parking lot, through the second floor doors, and crossed the catwalk to the west side of the mall. Moving as fast as I possibly could without drawing attention to myself, I passed American Girl, GNC, LensCrafters, and a blur of other stores I seldom visited while avoiding the ones I did.
I rushed by the food court, presumably out of range of anyone who could possibly ID me. I didn’t dare look up, much less across the railing, to see who was on the clock at Eternally 21.
As I prepared to zigzag across another catwalk back to the south side of the mall to avoid passing Circus Circus, I noticed the lights were on, but the front door was closed. Before I could tell if the Piggledys were mid-clown act for a particularly rowdy party of preschoolers, they emerged from Tommy Bahama.
My legs felt like melting rubber as they stepped beyond the plantation-style front porch and fell in just behind me.
“Honey, there’s not much more we can do about Higgledy right now but wait for word on his whereabouts,” Mr. Piggledy said.
“We can drive around the perimeter of the mall again.”
“Will it make you feel better?”
“Much.”
“I’ll get the keys,” he said as they disappeared into their store.
Perspiring through my gardening T-shirt, I continued on, reaching the bench by Chico’s with one minute and little left in the way of nerve to spare.
There was no sign of Griff yet.
I continued over to the north maintenance hall door.
Locked.
I waited a few seconds and tried again.
Still locked.
I spent the thirty remaining seconds until Griff was due sitting on the bench, trying to catch my ragged breath and figure out why it was I had to meet him here. And why now.
Another minute passed.
And then another.
I could only hope Griff had been waylaid by Higgledy’s latest disappearance and not bigger, worse things.
Three more minutes ticked by. Four, according to my cell phone, which was a minute ahead of my watch.
He’d called from a landline, but I had to assume Griff had his phone with him, so I texted him from mine at 4:26 p.m.
I’M HERE.
I pressed Send and waited another minute and a half for a response that didn’t come before I looked up and almost locked eyes with Hailey Rosenberg coming out of Caché, three stores to my north. If Andy and Tara’s mystery suspect was me and they’d already leaked their information, there was no knowing how far along the mall gossip gauntlet the news had already traveled.
I made a snap strategic decision to duck into Bath & Body Works, where I joined a trim blond of about forty at the antibacterial hand soap display. I sniffed a bottle of Caribbean Escape until Hailey passed the store,
crossed to the other side of the mall, and disappeared into Lucky Jeans, a safe distance down the way.
I ventured back into the mall, checking in every direction for a sign of Griff.
Nothing.
I was only in the store for a total of three minutes. Had he come by, he should still have been waiting. I stopped on my way back to the bench and looked down the maintenance hallway window.
Empty.
Three more minutes passed, most of which I spent wondering why my future depended on rushing to get to the mall, only to sit on a bench and/or hide from anyone familiar who happened to chance by.
I fired off another text:
I’M HERE. WHERE ARE YOU?
No response.
I spent another four minutes pondering what it was Griff couldn’t tell me over the phone that I didn’t already know. Tara and Andy did kill Laila after all? Tara and Andy were trying to frame me? Tara and Andy …
Somehow all roads seemed to lead to the two of them.
I spent five more minutes talking myself out of a growing fear that Griff was in some sort of peril at the hands of his supposed friends. Instead of sending another text, I called the main switchboard and asked to be connected to mall security.
I was urged by recorded prompt to leave a message.
I hung up, dialed Griff’s cell instead, and then left the most direct, non-incriminating message I could. “Griff, it’s Maddie. Weren’t we supposed to be meeting at 4:20? It’s now 4:43, and I’m wondering where you are. I’m going to give it another two minutes and then I have to assume—”
I spotted a telltale hat and the distinctive green uniform of the South Highlands Valley Mall security halfway down the corridor by the wildflower sculpture garden outside of Macy’s.
“Never mind. I think I see you coming now.”
I tossed the phone into my purse and looked back down the hallway feeling nervous, relieved, and then ultimately more confused. The approaching security guard was female, African-American, and definitely not Griff.
“Excuse me?” I swallowed away a lump of disappointment as it became clear she was rushing past me, not toward me to relay an urgent message from Griff saying he was okay but couldn’t make it because he was sidelined searching for Higgledy.
Or something like that.
“Yes ma’am?” Her tone was clipped and her attention four or five doors down the way. “How can I help you?”
“I was supposed to meet Griff Watson,” I said.
“Here?”
“Yes. Over twenty minutes ago.”
“Huh,” she said. “On mall business?”
I nodded, despite how personal that mall business had become.
“That explains why his phone was beeping and ringing.”
“You have his phone?”
“We dock our work cells in the office and check them in and out with every shift.”
“So Griff’s not working?”
“He wasn’t on the schedule today.”
“Huh.” I’d assumed that we needed to meet at the mall because he was working and couldn’t leave the premises. “So he’s not here at all?”
“I think he’s out of town, actually.”
“Out of town?” I repeated. Meaning he wasn’t and hadn’t been at the mall at all today?
“That’s what he told me.”
Clearly, something bigger, worse was going on at the South Highlands Valley Mall. What wasn’t clear was if it wasn’t really Griff who’d called to tell me, who had?
As Griff’s co-officer disappeared into Bath & Body Works, I knew without a doubt I needed to get out of there before I found out.
I almost made it.
“Hey there!” A voice said from above me as I stopped for the world’s fastest incognito shoe tie to avoid tripping over my dangling lace. “Mrs. Frugalicious!”
I tried to tell myself I couldn’t really have heard what I thought I’d just heard, that it couldn’t be happening.
Not here.
Not right now.
Blood rushed out of my hands and legs so fast I wasn’t sure I could stand. I considered pretending whoever was above me looking directly down at me was talking to someone else. I thought about curling into a ball and rolling away—I might have even tried it had there been somewhere I could roll to fast enough to escape. With no good option but to deny, deny, deny, I looked up and into the face of the woman from behind me in line at the grocery store.
The woman I’d given coupons for free pizzas.
She smiled. “I thought that was you.”
“Ummm …” I managed. I knew she’d heard of the Frugalicious blog because she’d mentioned her friend was a devotee. I’d figured she could be Wendy K., of the how to doctor up store-bought pizza comment that appeared on my website. What I hadn’t considered until exactly that moment was that she might also be a certain relentless journalist named W. Killian from What’s the Deal magazine.
Wendy Killian?
How else could she have made the leap from chancing upon me, a garden-variety coupon clipper, in line at the grocery store to figuring out I was Mrs. Frugalicious? I’d only posted the party post-game blog two hours ago.
“Twice in one week,” she said. “What are the chances?”
Pretty good, if she’d been following me. I considered the possibility that she was somehow connected to the garbled voice I’d so naively believed was Griff calling me from the mall. “How did you figure out I—”
My question was interrupted by the blip of a walkie-talkie.
I managed a quick glance to my left.
Nina Marino, office worker Patricia, and Dan Mitchell had materialized from inside Teariffic and stood huddled together in front of the doorway, dangerously close to us.
Dan glanced in our direction.
Patricia’s walkie-talkie squawked a staticky sentence: “Perp still thought to be on premises.”
Perp, as in me?
“Listen,” I said to Wendy K. or W. Killian or whoever she was. “I’ll give you your interview or whatever it is you want. I’ll email you back as soon as I can.”
Her face registered surprise. “But—”
“I’ve gotta run.”
Exactly thirty-seven minutes after I arrived at the mall, I was back in the car readjusting the rearview mirror I must have knocked askew in my rush to meet not-Griff and peeling out of the garage to speed back home.
Where I should have stayed in the first place.
TWENTY-FIVE
I WAS TOO FOCUSED on making sure no one followed me home to think about anything more than getting past our neighborhood guard gate and back into the safety of my house. How I managed to feign nonchalance about the dubious details of my afternoon and make small talk with my husband about the boys before they headed to a varsity team get-together, I’ll never know.
It wasn’t until I stepped into the shower to rinse off the slick of sweat, massage oil, and panic covering my body that thoughts of the last two hours began to bubble in my head.
If Griff hadn’t called me, who had?
Why had I been called to the mall in the first place?
Was it a coincidence I’d run into Wendy K. in the midst of it all?
In the midst of what, exactly?
Other than discovering the person behind the quiet, strained voice that had entreated me to rush to the mall and the gut-churning accidental run-in with Wendy K., nothing bigger or worse had happened during the thirty-nine minutes I’d spent waiting. And if Wendy had so easily recognized me, why hadn’t the Piggledys noticed me right in front of them? How had both Hailey and Dan Mitchell looked directly at me and not seen me? How had I gotten out of the mall unnoticed by Patricia, Nina Marino, or anyone else who might consider me a “perp still thought to be on the premises”?
Dumb luck?
It was possible Wendy could have followed me, which would explain our “chance” encounter, but it was impossible she’d had someone impersonate Griff and drop information she could
n’t have known to get me to the mall.
I turned the spigot up until the hot water felt like sharp needles.
Considering the weird way no one seemed to notice me while I was at the mall, I couldn’t help but wonder if the mall gossip gauntlet was functioning as something more than a conduit for rumors about job openings or who was hooking up with whom. There was little doubt in my mind that Andy and/or Tara had to be responsible for the murder, but could the cover-up be something more of a group effort?
The day after Laila died, I left the mall with more potential cause of death theories than people I’d spoken with. I left trip number two with an endless list of potential suspects, courtesy of my Andy Oliver–endorsed listening device and a mall full of employees who happened to be talking about the murder as I chanced by. Was it a coincidence I’d overheard Patricia on the phone in the executive offices, had come upon Dan and Nina having a kiss and cry by the food court, and then chanced on Patricia outside of the pretzel place once again? Was I so ridiculously predictable that they knew if they dropped the information in my lap, I’d run back up to Eternally 21 so Tara and Hailey could casually mention the food gifts being sent by Richard and Claudia?
I put my forearm against the tile, rested my head, and closed my eyes.
Tara had to know I’d report what I’d heard to the police, thus incriminating Richard, Claudia, and myself—all three of us suspects from outside the mall—for the authorities to focus their attention upon.
Andy and or Tara had to have put the poison in Laila’s drink, and one or both of them had to be behind the call to me, but who had actually dialed the phone and pretended to be Griff Watson?
As I reached down, grabbed the conditioner, and ran it through my hair, I grew more convinced it took a village where Laila DeSimone’s murder was concerned .
I dunked my head under the water.
If only I could figure out why the villagers needed me to rush over to the mall for nothing in particular to happen while I was there.
Eternally 21: A Mrs. Frugalicious Shopping Mystery Page 21