Jabbing at the phone buttons, I waited for what seemed an eternity for the officer who answered the phone to get back to me: no reports of vandalism from Fernglen Galleria last Sunday. I hung up. Taking another deep breath, I called Grandpa and told him what I suspected. “It’s more important than ever to get a lead on the taggers,” I said. “With any luck, they’ll remember what car they vandalized last Sunday.”
“That’s good thinking, Emma-Joy,” Grandpa said. “I’m on it. Out here.”
I debated calling Detective Helland. He’d probably sneer at my theory, the way he had when I suggested the pair who liberated Kiefer’s reptiles might have a connection with Jackson Porter. Reluctantly, I decided I had to call him anyway. He had the resources—if he chose to use them—to check with body shops to see if any of the suspects had had a car repainted this week. I couldn’t do that.
A long silence greeted my new theory after I laid it out for Helland. Finally, he said, “Do you have any idea how many paint and body shops there are within a fifty-mile radius of here?”
“Dozens.”
“Hundreds. No way can I spare the manpower to call them all to see if, by chance, they’ve painted one of a dozen cars owned by one of the people connected with this case.” His tone was more weary than scornful. “But it’s not bad thinking on your part, and if you catch up with the taggers, let me know. I could certainly move forward with more specific information, like make and model.”
I hung up, slightly miffed by his condescending “not bad thinking on your part.” It was damn good thinking, and as soon as Grandpa got a bead on the taggers, I’d prove it to Detective Helland. I finished up the briefing presentation by eleven o’clock, emailed it to Captain Woskowicz, and summoned Joel to the office so I could take a quick lunch break and get back on patrol. Sitting in the office was driving me stir-crazy. If I looked for another job, it would have to be something where I could be out and about, not a jail sentence in a cubicle.
In the food court, I bought a salad from the deli place and settled at my favorite table, away from the crowd, partially hidden by the spreading branches of a ficus. I hadn’t taken more than two bites of my chicken Caesar—sans dressing—when Jay Callahan plopped into the chair opposite me, smiling broadly. His dark red hair curled around his ears, and his hazel eyes surveyed my meal with pity. “You need a cookie to go with that.” He produced a chocolate chip cookie and waved it under my nose.
“I haven’t worked out in two days.” The sessions with Joel didn’t count since coaching him didn’t burn nearly as many calories as my usual lap swimming. “No cookies.”
With a shrug, he took a bite of the cookie. I forked up another unexciting mouthful of romaine.
“Heard any more about our body?” he asked.
“Robbie Porter’s body.”
“I heard the autopsy said it was a drug overdose—heroin. No sign of foul play.”
I looked up from my rabbit fodder. “Really? Where’d you hear that?” And why hadn’t Helland bothered to fill me in when we talked? I could just hear him say it was an official investigation and he didn’t share with civilians.
“Sources.” He grinned.
“Since when does a cookie mogul have ‘sources’?” I asked.
“‘Mogul’—I like the sound of that.” He pushed back in his chair so it balanced on two feet and smiled, teasing me with his nonresponsiveness.
I laid my fork down with a snap, breaking one of the plastic tines. “Look—who or what are you? I don’t believe you’re really a cookie franchisee. There’s not a single other merchant at this mall who spends as much time lurking in the garage after hours as you do. I’m surprised we didn’t run into you last night.”
Interest flickered in his eyes. “Why? What were you up to last night?”
I didn’t see any harm in telling him about our reenactment. “I half expected you to turn up,” I said when I’d finished. “After all, you’ve been Johnny-on-the-spot at every after-hours event this week.”
“Other fish to fry,” he said briefly.
I scanned his face. “C’mon, tell me who you’re with. You feel like a fed. DEA? FBI?”
Clanging the chair’s legs back down, he leaned toward me and whispered, “Can you keep a secret?”
Warily, I nodded, conscious of the chocolate chip sweetness of his breath at such close range. His eyes had flecks of gold in the hazel irises. A deadly serious look settled on his face. “I’m an industrial spy for Keebler, reporting on mall cookie recipes for the elves. I’m really an elf myself, but I grew taller than the norm, so they send me out on these missions because I blend in better with the populace at large. Get it, at large? And, I think you’re really cute, for a non-elf.” The irrepressible smile broke out again.
Caught between amusement at his outrageousness and annoyance at my gullibility—I’d thought he was going to tell me the truth—I caught his right ear between my thumb and forefinger and pinched it.
“Ow.”
“Where’re the pointy ears, elf boy?”
He gave me a wounded look. “Sure, make fun of me like all the elf boys and girls do. They don’t even let me join in elf games. I’ve had to file more than one ear-discrimination suit.”
I couldn’t help myself: I laughed. He grinned, clearly pleased at having amused me.
“Well, elf boy, I’ve got to get back to work.”
“Have they found that python yet?” Jay asked, gallantly gathering up my tray and trash.
“No,” I said. I’d reported the wet trail I’d found on the night shift to the maintenance crew, and they’d looked under and around the escalator. Nothing. “I’m afraid maybe whoever turned the other reptiles loose kept Agatha. I don’t know what she’s worth, but probably a lot.”
Jay’s question reminded me that I hadn’t checked in with Kiefer lately, so I headed to the Herpes Hut. The store was doing a booming business—maybe some of the publicity about loose snakes had paid off—and Kiefer looked harried.
“No, I haven’t heard anything about Agatha,” he said when I asked. “There was a guy in here yesterday, convinced he’d seen her in the Sears appliance center, but it was just some of that ducting for clothes dryers. The crinkly silver stuff. Who thinks a python is silver?” He shook his head.
Leaving Kiefer to his customers, I Segwayed to Diamanté, intending to ask Finola if she had an address or phone number for Velma Maldonado, Jackson Porter’s alleged mistress. I hadn’t thought to seek her out earlier, but it struck me that she might know something about Porter’s comings and goings, and maybe his business dealings, that would shed light on his murder. I didn’t know if Helland had bothered to get in touch with Ms. Maldonado, but I figured it couldn’t hurt to talk to her.
Diamanté also had a surfeit of customers, and I had to wait ten minutes, browsing the racks, before Finola could break free. When I told her what I was after, she scrunched up her face doubtfully. “I don’t know . . .”
“I just want to talk to her,” I said. “I won’t tell her you gave me her data.”
“Oh, what the hell,” she said, pulling out a business card and scribbling something on the back of it. “It’s not like she’s ever going to darken my door again without a sugar daddy to foot the bill. Jackson didn’t used to like them quite so young or quite so dim,” she said with a hint of venom in her voice.
“Did you and he have a thing?” I asked.
She looked up, instinctive denial on her face. Then, a rueful smile tugged at the corners of her mouth. “Is it so obvious? It was years ago. But we were still friends, still . . . fond of each other.”
What my brother would call “friends with benefits,” I suspected. Finola handed me the card. She’d written “Destiny’s Dance Studio” on it. “She’s a dance teacher,” Finola explained. “I don’t have her number, but I’m sure you can catch up with her at the studio. Monica says she practically lives there.”
I was confused. “Monica?” I looked around the store but didn’
t see her.
“Yes. She’s Velma’s mother. Didn’t you know?” Finola raised her penciled brows.
My flabbergasted expression must have answered her. “A month or so after Jackson took up with Velma, late last year, he asked if I would hire Monica. He said she’d lost her last job when the store she was working for folded. For old times’ sake, he said.” She snorted. “At the time, I had all the help I needed, but when Joanie got pregnant and quit a couple weeks ago, I told him I’d give her a chance. She’s really good with the customers,” she added.
“Thanks,” I said dazedly and walked out of the store, staring at the card in my hand. Jackson Porter’s girlfriend’s mother worked for Diamanté. The implications flooded over me as I paused by the Segway. Monica had a key to the store. She was supposed to open the shop the morning he died, but conveniently didn’t show up, ensuring someone else discovered the body. She denied knowing Jackson, even though she’d surely met him if he was in a relationship with her daughter and recommending her—Monica—for jobs. I stopped and thought. She hadn’t actually denied knowing him, I realized, thinking back on our conversation; she’d implied it by saying she’d only worked at the store a short time. Did Helland know about this connection? Somehow, I doubted it.
Seventeen
I worked the rest of my shift on autopilot, anxious for the moment I could ditch my uniform and head over to Destiny’s Dance Studio to talk to Velma Maldonado. I considered calling ahead but decided not to give her a chance to say she didn’t want to talk to me. In between discouraging teenagers from skateboarding in the mall and telling a middle-aged woman she couldn’t have her ferret on a leash because pets weren’t allowed at Fernglen, I spun theories about why Monica or her daughter might have wanted Jackson Porter dead.
Maybe Monica hated Porter for carrying on with her daughter. Maybe Velma hated him because he was cheating on her or dumping her. Maybe . . . the possibilities were almost endless, and I forced myself to stop thinking about them since I was just guessing in the absence of data. At three thirty that afternoon, though, I pulled up in front of Destiny’s Dance Studio, determined to get some facts. The studio sat in a high-end strip mall on the north end of Vernonville. Like the other stores in the center—a tea shop, an Amish furniture store, a Realtor’s office, and a Christian bookstore—it had a green awning, and the studio’s name swung on a wooden sign hung over the sidewalk. Cars jammed the parking lot, and girls ranging in age from three to midteens scurried from the lot to the studio, freezing in thin dance gear of leotards, tights, and, on a few of the girls, short flippy skirts.
I followed a giggling trio into the studio, which had a counter on the left and dance costumes pinned to a corkboard along the right-hand wall, mixed in with photos of award-winning dance ensembles hoisting trophies. Dead ahead was a studio with a large glass window through which I could see girls of about ten pliéing under the watchful eye of a thin woman in her fifties. I didn’t figure her for Velma Maldonado. Parents, mostly mothers, milled around, craning their necks to watch their little ballerinas in the studio, chatting with each other, and texting on cell phones.
“May I help you?” asked a harried-looking woman from behind the counter. She was stout with improbably black hair and the whisper of a matching mustache.
“I’m thinking about starting my daughter in dance,” I lied, “and a friend recommended your studio. She said Velma is just fabulous with kids. I was wondering if I could observe a class?”
“Oh, sure.” The woman nodded, turning to accept the check a client held out to her. “She’s in Studio D right now with the hip-hop class. To your right.” She pointed with her chin toward the hall that branched off on either side of the lobby.
I took the right-hand branch, passing one studio with adult tappers making a racket and another where teenage girls in leotards practiced split leaps. The last studio on the right had a smaller window than the others, just a porthole set into the door above a large red “D.” I peered in, nodding my head in tempo with the Black Eyed Peas song leaking around the door. Six tweens, including two boys, undulated their bodies in sync with the beat. A slim young woman stood with her back to me, showing one girl how to start a movement in her left hand and let it ripple up her arm, through her shoulders, and down her other arm. The teacher wore a classic pink leotard with black tights and had her black hair pulled back into a messy ponytail. When she turned, I saw delicate features with a slightly broad nose, sloe eyes, and a lush mouth. Velma was half Filipina, I decided, and probably no more than twenty-five years old.
The hip-hop tune reminded me of how much I’d liked dancing, back before my knee got shot up. I let myself feel melancholy for a moment, as I watched the kids gyrate and spin and fling their bodies around exuberantly. Ten minutes later Velma cut off the music with a remote and clapped her hands. “That’s it for today. On Tuesday we’ll start learning our routine for the recital.”
“Yay,” the kids chorused, rushing for the door and the waiting mothers who had gathered in the hall behind me. I stepped aside to avoid being flattened, then slipped through the door as the last dancer exited. Velma was removing a CD from the stereo and didn’t see me enter.
“Miss Maldonado?”
She spun around with fluid grace. “Yes?” Her skin was almond colored, smooth, and unlined.
“I understand you were friends with Jackson Porter,” I said after introducing myself.
“Yes?” Her tone was warier.
“Can you tell me about him?” I left my question openended, not knowing exactly what to ask.
“Why should I? I already talked to the police. Are you a reporter?”
Interest flickered in her eyes, and I saw her making mental calculations about how much her story might be worth if a tabloid was interested.
I explained who I was, and after a moment she said, “There’s nothing much to tell. We dated for a while and he died.”
“Was he worried about anything recently? Did he mention anyone being mad at him?”
“Besides the usuals?” Pulling a pot of lip gloss from a tote bag, she stuck her pinky in it and smoothed the goo over her lips. The scent of licorice drifted to me.
“The usuals?” Her nonchalance took me aback. Who talked so easily about their lover being hated by a posse of people?
Cynicism gleamed in her brown eyes. “He got hate mail from enviro-nazis every week, especially when one of his developments made the news, along with pictures and videos of the poor, helpless creatures he was exterminating.” Her tone made it clear she wasn’t shedding too many tears about the demise of some obscure rodent or amphibian. “And, of course, there was always Elena.” She rolled her eyes.
“His wife knew about you?”
“Oh, please. She’d have had to be blind, deaf, and dumb not to know. I was just one in a long line. I had no illusions that I was the end of the line, either. Jackson had the attention span of a mayfly—here today, gone tomorrow. It was fun while it lasted, and I’m sorry he’s dead, but I’m off to the Big Apple next month—I got a part dancing in an off-off-Broadway play—and our . . . liaison was coming to an end, anyway.” She drew out the word “liaison” as if she liked the feel of it on her tongue.
“How did you two meet?”
“I went out with Robbie a couple of times when we were in high school.” Tears sprang to her eyes, but she dashed them away. “I can’t believe he’s dead. He was a nice boy, really liked me, but he always seemed kind of lost, you know? Anyway, I ran into Jackson at a charity thing last fall and, well, one thing led to another.”
“What did Robbie think about that?” I asked.
“What do you mean?” She looked genuinely puzzled.
“That you’d moved on from dating him to dating his father. That would rile a lot of guys.” To say the least. It might drive some men to murder. Was that what Robbie Porter had wanted to tell me—that he’d killed his father? Maybe his conscience got to him and the overdose was suicide, not an accident and no
t murder.
“Robbie and I were never that serious,” Velma said dismissively. Pulling a pink cardigan from her dance bag, she shrugged her slim arms into the sleeves. “And Jackson, well . . .” She trailed off, as if unsure how to characterize her relationship with Jackson Porter, or unwilling to. “Look, I’ve got to go.” She slung the dance bag over her shoulder.
I followed her out of the small studio. After threading our way through knots of bumblebee-costumed preschoolers, we reached the lobby. “Porter got your mom the job at Diamanté, didn’t he?” I asked.
“Yeah? So?” She waved to the woman behind the counter and pushed open the door, letting in chilly air.
“So what did she think of your relationship?”
Velma turned to face me on the sidewalk fronting the parking lot, the wind tugging strands from her loose ponytail and blowing them across her face. “Where do you get off being all judgmental about what Jackson and I had together? ‘What did Robbie think? What did your mom think?’ Who cares? It was between me and Jackson. Period. We enjoyed each other’s company. We had great sex. Get over it.” She gave me a condescending once over. “Maybe you just need to get laid.”
She beeped open a dark blue Honda CR-V parked in front of us, flung her bag onto the passenger seat, and climbed in. Without a word of farewell, she backed out and drove away.
I stood as if rooted to the sidewalk, shocked by her words. Was I judgmental? I sorted through my thoughts about Velma and Jackson, colored by Finola’s description of him as a “sugar daddy.” Yes, I had to admit their relationship seemed more like a business transaction than a love affair to me, but it wasn’t my business. I had no right to judge Velma. Or Jackson Porter, for that matter. I drifted toward my car, annoyed with myself for letting my personal feelings influence the interview. I’d never learn anything more from Velma. Remembering her last words made me bang my hand against the steering wheel. Was it really so obvious I hadn’t had sex in the modern era?
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