Murder at the Mall: (A Madeline Shore Cozy Curvy Mystery)

by Lynn Cooper

  And even those things are a little cute.

  “So,” Zeke continues, “after he knocks the cameras out, why doesn’t he just bring Bluff across the mall and back here the way we came in?”

  “There are too many security guards throughout the mall and posted at each entrance. Mayor Kwan’s got them dispersed so thickly, you could stir them with a stick. Even though it was pretty close to pitch dark in here, the killer couldn’t risk literally bumping into one of them.”

  “Then answer me this,” he says: “Why would he go to the trouble of knocking out the security cameras and the back-up system if he’s going to come through the ceiling anyway?”

  “To divert suspicion from it, for one thing. He’s big into diversions. He wants you to waste your time trying to figure out how he might have slipped past the guards down here on the ground floor. Just like he wants to divert your attention onto other suspects. He has almost a magician’s way of misdirection. He gets you looking in one place when he’s really operating in another.”

  “You said for one thing. What else?”

  “I think he’s enjoying this. Think about it. Why not just kill Bluff at his own house? Shoot him. Poison his food. Knock him over the head. Simple. Yet he goes through all these complicated maneuvers. It has to be because it’s about more than just murder and getting even. By escorting Bluff here to kill him, he’ making a statement. Sending a message. Maybe both.”

  “Escorting? Don’t you mean forcing him to come?”

  “Well, no. I mean, I’m not sure. I don’t think he was necessarily forced. I think Bluff may have come here with the killer of his own free will. I haven’t gotten that part completely nailed down yet.”

  “I see.” He nods and frowns in an extremely sarcastic way. “So, what you’re saying is, the killer killed the cameras even though he was coming through the ceiling. Then he gets Mr. Burrows to willingly accompany him through it and into Missy’s dressing room like a sheep to slaughter.”

  “No, silly, of course Bluff didn’t know he was going to be killed. As I said, our murderer is extremely devious. And clever. And, unless I’m not reading him right, he’d love to kill Bluff all over again if he could.”

  Zeke pushes his coattails back and puts his hands on his hips. He’s blinking a lot. If I were to guess, I’d say he’s trying to recreate my outlandish theory in his own head. Exhaling, he stares up at the ceiling. “So, did he kill Bluff up there or down here?”

  “Actually, sort of in-between.”

  I can almost see his blood pressure spike.

  Reaching into his jacket pocket, he extracts one of those small flashlights only about four inches long. He tucks it into his shirt pocket, whips off his jacket coat (very sexy) and tosses it onto the bench before he steps up onto the chair. It’s no problem at all for a man that tall to push the square, drop-leaf panel up and off the metal grid and lay it to the side. Zeke reaches up past the suspension grid, his hands finding the more substantial metal ceiling joists above. With the power and athletic grace of a basketball player going up for a shot, he leaps upward until his forearms can push downward on the joists and lift him into a seated position. Past his dangling legs, instead of seeing pitch black I see a faint gray.

  “Skylights?” I ask.

  “Yeah. Huge ones. At this time of day, with the sun directly overhead, I’m not sure I’ll need this flashlight at all.”

  “You mean, you’re not sure we’ll need it.” I step back up onto the chair.

  “You’re not getting up here.”

  “Oh, yes, I am. Either you pull me up, or I get Officer Lattimore to push me up. Your choice.”

  He groans. “Fine.”

  Zeke stands and straddles the steel joists, then reaches down through the opening and takes my hands. I feel like Mary Poppins as I go flying upward into the attic of the giant mall. He sets me on my feet on top of a wide catwalk.

  “Don’t move from there yet,” he warns. “Let your pupils adjust for a few seconds. Even then, you don’t go off on your own. You stay with me, got it?”

  Now, this big-boy tone me likey. “Yes, sir.”

  The adjustment of my pupils, coupled with the plethora of skylights in the roof, brings the expansive attic into shadowy view. It’s just what you might expect to see. Lots of sturdy framework. Gigantic, crisscrossing steel beams. Thick electrical wires snaking along the top of ceiling joists. Metal cables and huge heating-and-air units. Shafts of natural light filter down around them, illuminating a network of four-foot-wide, mesh catwalks running perpendicular and parallel.

  I think about Josie’s cute drawing of two people in an attic.

  “Okay, Miss Shore, you’ve got my attention. I’ll concede it’s plausible someone could’ve gotten up here and either enticed, coerced or carried Mr. Burrows to the dressing room below. But, in case it’s escaped your attention—scratch that; nothing escapes your attention—there are 108 stores in this mall. I would imagine most if not all of them have a way of getting up here. Maybe it’s a drop-leaf ceiling panel in a dressing room or a staircase in a storage area or some other intended or unintended means of access. On top of that, I’m pretty sure the construction blueprints required access doors to be put in at different points to do maintenance and repair work. How are we supposed to know from which direction the murderer brought Mr. Burrows to Missy’s?”

  “That way,” I say, pointing down the back wall to our left. “Do you see a light switch anywhere? Any repairmen or electricians working up here would need a lot more than skylights to see what they’re doing.”

  Taking out his flashlight, Zeke shines it and locates a switch a few feet away. When he flips it, a small section of the attic around us roughly the circumference of a football field is illuminated.

  “Follow me,” I say. Barefoot, I start walking along the catwalk closest to the wall and counting. “One, two, three—”

  “Now what are you doing?”

  “Starting over, apparently.” I back up three paces. “Quiet, now. One, two, three, four, five—”

  With Zeke following me along the catwalk, I stop when I get to sixty-nine. “Now, it’s by no means perfect. But we should be roughly over the top of Krusty-Creamed Doughnut Shop.”

  He smiles. “What are we going to do—drop in for a doughnut and some coffee?”

  “Har-de-har-har. I’ll explain it when we get down there. Look for an opening. An attic door. A trap door square, maybe.”

  “Would a spiral staircase do?”

  I turn and see him staring at one on the other side of a vertical beam. “That’ll work,” I say.

  I follow him down the black, steel steps to the bottom. To our right not more than three or four steps is a gray, steel door with a sign that says ABSOLUTELY NO ADMITTANCE. To our left is a short, narrow corridor. It leads to a gray, steel door with a push bar, or panic bar, because of its ease in opening in an emergency.

  Zeke and I go to that one first. When he opens it, sunlight glistening across the mall parking lot stabs our eyes. Holding the door ajar, he looks around to the other side of it. “There’s an electronic keypad door lock on the wall. Whoever brought Bluff in this way knew the code. Is this what you expected to find?”

  “Would it sound cocky if I said yes?”

  “It would.”

  “Then, yes, it’s what I expected. Let’s see what’s behind Door Number Two.”

  I stand beside Zeke as he tries the knob to no avail. So he bangs on it with the side of his fist. When no one shows up, he bangs harder. A few seconds later, spiky-black-haired Todd sternly sticks his face in the round portal window. “‘Absolutely no admittance.’ You can’t come in this way,” he says, his voice muffled. “Go around.”

  Zeke flashes his badge and gets in his big-boy voice. “I’m Detective Zeke Worthy with the Slocomb Police Department. Open up.”

  Todd’s expression softens briefly before he tightens his jaw. “You still can’t come in. Go get a warrant or something.”

 
; I step in front of Zeke and stand on my tiptoes to look through the glass. “Hey, Todd. Remember me?”

  His eyes widen. “Madeline. You’re the pretty lady who sniffed the cruller.”

  “You do remember. Can we come in?”

  He frowns. I can almost see the wheels turning in his head. “I really shouldn’t. I can’t lose this job. I’m having to work overtime as it is. If my mom finds out what I’ve done, she’s going to go ballistic on me.”

  “Oh, Todd,” I say sympathetically, “what have you done?”

  Zeke pounds his fist against the door. “Nobody cares. We don’t have time for this nonsense—”

  I elbow him in the ribs. I think I’ve bruised my elbow. “The detective apologizes. Go ahead, Todd.”

  He shrugs. “I took out a chunk of my college savings account to put a retainer on a sweet dirt bike. Mom checks the account on line every few days. If I don’t get that money back in there before she sees it’s missing, I’m going to be toast.”

  “How much did you take out?”

  “Fifty bucks.”

  I look up at Zeke. “My handbag’s back in the dressing room. Have you got fifty bucks?”

  “Maybe. Barely. But, if you think for one second—”

  “Let’s bet, Todd. I told you I’d give you a chance to get your money back. Here it is. Show him the money, Detective.”

  Grudgingly, Zeke extracts his wallet from his jacket and fishes out two twenties and a ten. Glaring at me, he waves it in front of the window.

  “What’s the bet?” Todd asks, grinning hopefully.

  With my heart racing, I turn and put my arms around Zeke’s neck. “It’s a sucker bet, Todd. I’ll bet you fifty bucks Detective Worthy won’t kiss me.”

  “Wait a sec—did you say ‘won’t’?”

  “That’s right. Fifty big ones he’ll be able to resist the temptation.”

  Barely moving his lips, Zeke whispers from the corner of his mouth, “Miss Shore, what the devil are you doing?”

  “Getting us into that doughnut shop,” I mumble-whisper back. “What about it, Todd? You game?”

  His goofy grin fades. “Oh, I get it. He’s gay.”

  “No, kid, I’m not gay!” Zeke snaps. “Even though that would be all right if I were. Which I’m not.”

  “No, Todd, he’s straight. Straight and totally dedicated to his work.” I look up into his eyes, letting my fingers graze his hair. “Single-minded. Completely, almost obsessively, focused on solving crimes. No time for the real pleasures in life.”

  Out of my periphery, I see Todd shut his eyes and shake his head. “You’re confusing me. You’re saying a straight guy will not kiss you, a gorgeous woman with her arms around his neck. That he’d rather keep his fifty bucks than do what any man in his right mind would die to do.”

  “You’re very sweet, Todd, and you’ve put the wager succinctly,” I say, looking longingly from one of Zeke’s ocean-blue eyes to the other. “Bet?”

  My breath catches a little when Zeke moves his face so close to mine I can feel his warm breath. He whispers, “I don’t like being manipulated, Miss Shore.”

  I lock my wrists on his neck and hold him securely. “Do you want to solve the case?”

  “You know I do.”

  “Then you know what you have to do.”

  He slips his arms around my waist and pulls me tighter. “I don’t have to do anything, Miss Shore.”

  “It’s a bet! It’s a bet!” Todd shouts, hitting the window.

  When Zeke kisses me—a long, soft, deep kiss that is ten million times better than I imagined—I feel it from the top of my head to the tip of my bare toes.

  “I win!” Todd shouts. “Go ahead and slide the money under the door.”

  As Zeke and I reluctantly pull back from each other, it takes a second for me to remember what’s going on here. “Uh, no can do. There’s a rubber threshold cover. The door’s airtight.”

  “Okay,” he says, opening the door and snatching the money from Zeke’s hand. I cringe when he actually kisses the unsanitary bills. “Thank you so much, Madeline. Why did you want to come in?”

  “We’re investigating the strawberry-lemon-glazed cruller theft you told me about yesterday morning. Could you bring Detective Worthy up to speed on the case?”

  “It’s an actual case? Oh, sure.”

  For the first time since I met the teen, he shows some signs of life. Animatedly, he proceeds to tell Zeke about having to get another cruller from the back of the bakery because one was missing from its china plate in the glass case. He tells him about our bet. “I don’t know how she knew.”

  “Neither do I,” Zeke says. “Thanks for your cooperation, Todd. Are you ready, Miss—what’s wrong?”

  Furrowing my brow, I walk toward the interior of the mall. I pan the myriad of faces passing by, going into stores, visiting the kiosks. “There it is again.”

  “There’s what again?”

  “The nape-of-the-neck feeling somebody is watching me. Following me.”

  “I just did, on both accounts.”

  I laugh half-heartedly. “No. I felt it earlier when I first came into the mall. It’s weird. Why would someone be following me?”

  “No one is. It’s a feeling we all get sometimes; but, like everything else, you already know that. Can we go now?”

  I point to the glass display case. “As soon as the Toddster gets me that Bavarian Crème doughnut and you pay for it.”

  Out in the corridor, as I enjoy my pastry, Zeke turns toward me. “You know, Miss Shore, we could’ve gotten everything from that kid staying right out here. I could’ve saved my lunch money.”

  “But I wouldn’t have gotten this,” I say, holding up my treat with my mouth full, “and you wouldn’t have gotten your kiss.”

  He smiles crookedly. “You mean you wouldn’t have gotten yours.”

  “Tomato, tomahto. Besides, I thought detectives were used to paying confidential informants.”

  His whole, slightly-playful demeanor suddenly darkens. He buttons his jacket. “Are you ready to explain what a strawberry-lemon-glazed cruller has to do with Mr. Burrows’ murder?”

  Chapter Thirteen

  “I NOTICED A WHITE glaze on Bluff’s lips,” I tell him, licking mine as I finish the doughnut. “Graham said it was nothing more than dried spittle. But I have a pretty good nose. When I sniffed it, I recognized it was one of Krusty-Creamed’s specialty doughnuts.”

  “Hold the phone,” Zeke says, touching his fingertips to his temples. “You’re saying that shortly before he killed Mr. Burrows, our murderer brought him in here for a pastry?”

  “That’s what I meant when I said he didn’t necessarily force Bluff to go on this journey. Up until the moment he died, the poor guy probably thought his trip to the mall was some sort of lark.”

  “Which means he knew his killer.”

  “He did. After leaving the doughnut shop, they went up this spiral staircase and down to the dressing room at Missy’s.”

  “Why not just kill him right here in this corridor? Or inside the doughnut shop?”

  I smile. “Or back at his house, for that matter? The answer has to be, he expressly wanted to get Bluff to Missy’s.”

  I could say more at this point, but I let my words sink in for a few seconds. Give Zeke time to mull this over. I don’t pretend to know everything about men. But one thing I do know is, they don’t like to be shown up—especially by a curvy woman who spends her days crafting.

  Looking thoughtful, Zeke steps up onto the staircase. “Well, Miss Shore, on this point I agree with you: the killer was sending a message. Based on what you yourself have just shown me, it’s clear he was sending it directly to Yvonne Ellsworth. He figured she’d be the one who found Mr. Burrows’ body. He found out she’d been having an affair with the councilman. He wanted her to see what happened to anyone who put his hands on her because the killer is her husband.”

  “That would be the logical assumption. I know yo
u don’t believe her, but Yvonne insists there’s no way Vince could have known about the affair. According to her, if he had, he wouldn’t have gone through all these machinations. In a fit of blind, jealous rage, he would’ve just killed Bluff wherever he found him.”

  Zeke arches one eyebrow. “Maybe he did—right there in Missy’s dressing room. Maybe her husband isn’t as clueless as she thinks he is.”

  Uh-oh. He’s not just talking about Vince Ellsworth. Even though I’m dying to know the details of Zeke’s obviously-failed marriage (and if it had anything to do with him showing up suddenly in Slocomb), this is not the time to get into it.

  “Maybe he isn’t. But I don’t picture Vince granting Bluff, who has had sex with his wife—six times, to be exact—a strawberry-lemon-glazed cruller for his last meal. Besides, Yvonne says he’s in Europe on business. Most importantly, it doesn’t seem likely the kind of man Yvonne described would go to all the trouble of such a theatrical murder. From the way she portrayed him, it’s more likely Vince would blow Bluff up with a bomb, take out a full-page spread in The Slocomb Guardian and proudly proclaim, ‘I DID IT!’”

  “Maybe women know as little about what is really going on as the men they’re trying to cuckold do.”

  “Alrighty, then,” I say, clapping my hands together. “What do you say we get back over to the dressing room and I show you how whoever our killer is committed the crime?”

  “Fine,” he says, heading up the staircase in front of me. “But I’ll give you odds Vince is our guy.”

  I’m a little distracted by the view of Zeke’s fine backside. But, hey, I’m a multi-tasker. “I wouldn’t make any more bets today, Detective. Todd just took you for half a C-note.”

  WHEN WE STAND OVER the removed drop-leaf ceiling panel and look down at the chair below in the dressing room, I feel a sudden pang of remorse for poor Bluff. This was one of the last views of life he would ever have.

  “All right,” Zeke says, folding his arms. “Let me make sure I’m following you. The killer not only wants to eliminate Mr. Burrows but also wants to humiliate him and send a message to Mrs. Ellsworth in the process. Although the killer is obviously strong and Mr. Burrows is not a particularly large man, he doesn’t want to lug a dead body literally up and down the mall just to dump him in a dressing room at Missy’s Buxom Boutique.”