Tote Bags and Toe Tags

by Dorothy Howell

  “I got this,” I said.

  I’ve been interviewed by homicide detectives before—in two states, actually. I’d had a brief run-in with the FBI, too—long story—so I knew what to do.

  Maybe I should add that to my résumé.

  I knew I hadn’t done anything wrong so I had nothing to worry about. I’d simply had the misfortune of finding Violet dead on the office floor. That’s it. End of my involvement. So I had nothing to worry about.

  Jeez, this whole thing seemed eerily familiar.

  Adela rushed through the door into the conference room and I heard her say, “I found Haley Randolph. She’s here.” Then she blasted past me, back down the corridor as if she’d just stepped onto the red carpet and spotted another woman wearing her exact same dress.

  I lingered in the hallway for a few seconds and reminded myself that the homicide detectives were just looking for information—no way were they going to try to pin anything on me—so I had nothing to worry about. I mean, really, this day could not possibly get any worse. Right?

  I walked into the conference room. Two LAPD homicide detectives sat side by side at the head of the table. My stomach did its this-cannot-be-happening heave.

  Detectives Madison and Shuman.

  Oh, crap.

  CHAPTER 4

  Detective Madison and I had history—but not the good kind.

  He’d been all set to retire last year when I’d solved a big case for him—which he didn’t seem to appreciate, for some reason. So he was still on the job, on a mission, really, to find me guilty of something.

  I hadn’t seen Madison in a few months but he hadn’t changed much. Thinning gray hair, heavy jowls, a gravy stain on his tie that I suspected was left over from yesterday’s lunch, and a beach ball belly.

  Detective Shuman and I had history, too—the better kind. Nothing romantic, of course, since I had an official boyfriend and Shuman had an official girlfriend he was absolutely crazy about. But still, there was something going on between us, only neither of us would go there and find out exactly what it was.

  Shuman looked good today. Early thirties, kind of tall, nice build, brown hair, blue eyes. He had on his usual sport jacket–shirt-tie combo.

  “Well, if it’s not LAPD’s favorite murder suspect,” Detective Madison said, and sat back in his chair. “Haley Randolph. Again.”

  “Aren’t you supposed to be working in another jurisdiction, or whatever you call it?” I asked.

  Madison folded his hands across his wide belly. “You’re well-known in squad rooms all over Southern California. When the call came in that you’d reported yet another murder, the word went out.”

  I pictured a giant “H” beaming into the heavens over city hall, just like the Bat Signal above Gotham City. Cool.

  “What can you tell us about Violet Hamilton’s murder?” Shuman asked, as he pulled a little notebook from his jacket pocket.

  “She was murdered?” I asked, as I sat down at the table. “It wasn’t an accident?”

  “Like you don’t know,” Madison sneered. He rocked forward in his chair. “You’re working here now, aren’t you?”

  He made it sound like it was all part of some big conspiracy.

  “I just got hired yesterday,” I said.

  “And there’s a murder already,” Madison said.

  Well, okay, I couldn’t exactly argue with that.

  “Look, all I did was walk into the office and find Violet dead on the floor behind the desk,” I said. “I had nothing to do with her death.”

  “You had no reason to want her dead?” Madison asked.

  “No, of course not,” I insisted.

  “No reason at all?” he repeated.

  I got a weird feeling.

  “No,” I said. Okay, that sounded kind of guilty.

  “Then let me give you a reason,” Madison declared. “You’ve got a lot to hide.”

  My weird feeling turned really weird.

  “Your résumé,” he said.

  Yikes! Had he seen it?

  “You need a security clearance to work here, don’t you, Miss Randolph?” Detective Madison demanded.

  “Well, yeah, everybody needs—”

  “But not everybody is afraid of a background check like you are,” Madison said. “Because not everybody has something to hide, like you do.”

  Jeez, what could I say to that?

  “You’re afraid of a background check. You wanted to delay it in an attempt to ingratiate yourself here,” Detective Madison said. “But you won’t get your clearance. You know you won’t. And then what will your socially prominent mother say? What will your well-to-do boyfriend and his family think of you?”

  Madison pushed to his feet, planted both palms on the table, and leaned toward me. He looked like one of those bulldogs snarling through a backyard fence.

  “You came to work early this morning, didn’t you?” Madison demanded.

  “Well, yes. I wanted to make a good first—”

  “You sneaked in early—”

  “I didn’t sneak!”

  “You were supposed to report to the human resources office, weren’t you?” Madison said. “But you didn’t. You went to another office. Don’t lie, Miss Randolph.”

  “I’m not lying!”

  “You found Violet Hamilton and you killed her to stop her background investigation because you have a lot to hide and you don’t want to lose this job,” he declared.

  “No—”

  “You were seen bending over her body,” Madison told me. “I have a witness!”

  “I was just—”

  Madison straightened up. “I’m going to take apart your résumé item by item, find everything you lied about. And I don’t care if doing that brings down this whole company!”

  Great.

  I didn’t know why Madison would think I’d lied on my résumé, except that everyone lies on their résumé. I mean, if people didn’t lie, how would anybody ever get a job?

  I swung my Honda into the parking lot in front of the Holt’s store in Santa Clarita, and cut off a bright yellow VW Beetle to grab a spot near the door.

  This wasn’t exactly how I’d planned to spend my evening. I’d envisioned myself skipping into the store, cartwheeling to the store manager’s office, and claiming my little piece of the American dream by announcing my resignation at the top of my lungs. Now I didn’t dare quit. Not with that whole murder investigation and security clearance thing hanging over me. Instead, I had to go inside and actually work.

  I hate my life.

  Of course, it was possible I had nothing to worry about—from Detective Madison, anyway. I still didn’t know for sure whether Violet had been murdered or if she’d died under other circumstances. Maybe Madison was just messing with my mind.

  My cell phone rang. I pulled it from my handbag—a really cool Dooney & Bourke barrel—and saw Ty’s name on the caller I.D. screen. My heart did its usual—but rare—Ty’s-calling flutter. I answered right away.

  “I heard you had a rough day,” Ty said.

  His voice sounded soft and sexy. I pictured him seated at his big desk in his big office at the Holt’s corporate office downtown, still dressed immaculately even after twelve hours of handling situations all more important than me. But at least he’d called. I was glad about that.

  “You heard about Violet dying?” I asked.

  “Sarah told me,” he said.

  I hate her.

  I sat there in my car, looking up at the sign on top of the building that spelled out HOLT’S in blue cursive letters, thinking about Sarah Covington working at the corporate office with Ty. If it hadn’t been for her big mouth, I’d be working there, too. Instead I was stuck at Dempsey Rowland, in the middle of a possible murder investigation.

  Then it hit me. Oh my God. Sarah probably knew something like this would happen. She probably got me the job on purpose to make things harder on me. She could have killed Violet herself just to make me look bad.


  Well, okay, maybe that was a bit of a stretch, but it could have happened.

  “Haley?” Ty asked.

  I realized he’d been talking and I wasn’t listening.

  “Yeah, I’m here,” I said quickly. “I have to go in a minute. I can’t be late for my shift.”

  “You’re still working at the store?” he asked.

  I couldn’t exactly tell him that Detective Madison had declared me a suspect in Violet’s death, and that there was a question about the info I’d stated on my résumé, and doubt as to whether I’d get a security clearance and remain employed at Dempsey Rowland.

  I saw no reason to get into all that with him.

  “I was already on the schedule and I didn’t want to leave the store without coverage. It wouldn’t be right,” I said. “Unless, of course, you want to come over to my place. I’ll call in sick.”

  Ty chuckled. “Sounds good, but I can’t make it tonight. I have a meeting.”

  Damn.

  “I’ll see you soon,” Ty said.

  I was about to ask his definition of “soon”—since it often conflicted with mine—but he hung up. I sat in my car for another few minutes until there was nothing left to do but go inside.

  The store was kind of quiet tonight, just a few shoppers wandering around as I made my way to the employees’ breakroom at the back of the building. This area also housed the store manager’s office, the training room, and a couple of other offices.

  Just outside the breakroom was the customer service booth, often my assigned sector of retail hell. Grace was in the booth tonight. She’s way cool. She was in college and took her classes seriously, which was kind of odd, but we’re still friends. She’d recently dyed the tips of her spiky hair Martian green. It looked great.

  Inside the breakroom I stowed my purse in my locker, hung my Holt’s lanyard around my neck, and cued up behind the other employees in line for the time clock.

  “Hey, girl.” My friend Bella left her spot ahead of me in line and came back to stand next to me. “You look like your cat got run over, or something. What’s up?”

  Bella was my BFF at Holt’s. She was tall and black, and she worked at Holt’s to save money for beauty school. She envisioned herself as a hairdresser to the stars and, in the meantime, practiced on herself. Tonight she’d fashioned her hair into what looked like a sea turtle, so I figured she was in a tropical phase.

  “Just one of those days,” I said.

  “It’s always one of those days in this place,” Bella grumbled, as the line moved forward.

  A few weeks ago, the time clock blew up. Everybody blamed me but it wasn’t my fault—not entirely, anyway—so now we had a new one. Instead of sticking our time cards into a slot, we punched in our employee number on a keypad, pressed our thumb on an I.D. screen, and that was it. Really. You’d think Holt’s was preparing us to arm nuclear missiles, because Corporate had subjected us to a butt-numbing three-hour training course to tell us that. I’d avoided the entire session by hiding out in the stock room.

  That’s how I roll.

  I glanced at the work schedule hanging above the time clock as I clocked in and saw that I was assigned to the junior’s department tonight. I liked working in juniors, mainly because there was a great spot behind the clothing racks and in front of the wall of jeans, where I could sit on the floor, pretend to straighten sizes, and text my friends.

  Just because I knew my department assignment, I saw no reason to rush straight there. I circled around the rear of the store, past domestics, thinking I might stop off in the shoe department and catch up on things with Sandy, my other Holt’s BFF, when I spotted Detective Shuman in the housewares department.

  Yikes! What was he doing here?

  Immediately, I dropped into a crouch behind the display of place mats. My heart pounded. My thoughts raced. Had Shuman come to Holt’s tonight to arrest me for Violet’s murder?

  For a minute—well, for several, really—I considered sneaking to the stock-room door and going out the back way through the loading dock. But then I realized that wouldn’t accomplish anything, just prolong the inevitable. Shuman knew where I lived. If he’d really come to arrest me, he could easily find me.

  And so could Detective Madison, I realized.

  Hmm. I hadn’t spotted him with Shuman. He sure as heck wouldn’t want to miss being front and center when I was arrested.

  I rose and peered over the place mat display. No sign of Madison. Then I saw Shuman looking at the stand mixers. A woman stood beside him.

  I figured her for maybe thirty, kind of tall, trim, with dark brown hair pulled back in a sensible, low ponytail. She had on a black skirt, low-heeled pumps, and carried a black Coach tote. She wore a royal blue blouse and had turned up the collar and rolled the cuffs back. It made me think she’d gotten off work, ditched a suit jacket, and was going for a more informal look.

  I can’t say she was gorgeous. Pretty, though, in a no-nonsense way, the kind of person who always got picked to head up a committee or something because they looked smart, competent, and capable, and would make everybody else assigned to the project look good.

  Shuman sure found her fascinating. He stood close as she studied the stand mixers that were on display. He watched her expressions, moved when she moved.

  Oh my God. She was Shuman’s girlfriend, I realized, the lawyer who worked in the district attorney’s office. They were shopping.

  How come Ty never went shopping with me?

  Shuman didn’t take his eyes off of her, as if every word she spoke, every movement she made, was absolutely captivating.

  Well, maybe we’d never gone shopping, but Ty always looked at me that way.

  Seeing them together, bending their heads to talk, studying the display, discussing options, smiling at each other, laughing at some private joke, gave me a weird feeling, somehow.

  I walked over. Shuman didn’t look surprised to see me.

  Maybe it wasn’t a coincidence they’d chosen this Holt’s store to shop in.

  “Haley, this is Amanda Payton,” he said, making introductions.

  “I found my grandmother’s German cookbook, so I’m redoing my entire kitchen,” Amanda said, smiling broadly. Definitely a woman on a mission. She touched Shuman’s arm. “He claims he’s never eaten German food before, so I’m going to rock his world.”

  Shuman shook his head and gave her a teasing grin. “I don’t know about that.”

  “You’re going to love it,” Amanda declared. “Haley, you’ll have to come eat with us one night. Oh, I know. We’ll have a dinner party.”

  “Sounds great,” I said.

  Ty and I had never had a dinner party, but we could. He’d love it. Kind of. Sort of. Well, maybe.

  “Perfect. We’ll invite the—” Amanda stopped, pulled her cell phone out of her tote and checked the caller I.D. screen. She looked at Shuman. “Sorry, I have to take this.”

  Amanda answered her phone as she walked away. I watched Shuman as he followed her with his gaze.

  Yeah, Ty had looked at me that way before. I’m sure he had.

  “She seems really nice,” I said.

  “She’s awesome,” Shuman mumbled, his eyes still on her.

  Ty thought I was awesome. Probably.

  After a few more seconds, Shuman turned to me, his expression decidedly different.

  “Violet Hamilton was murdered,” Shuman said. “Blunt force trauma to the back of her head.”

  “I don’t suppose you caught the killer already?” I asked.

  “Did you see anyone or anything unusual in the office?” he asked.

  Shuman had become pretty good about sharing info with me, but he wasn’t about to give up anything without getting something from me first.

  “I noticed that lots of people had reported early for work, which seemed kind of odd to me. But maybe that’s expected there,” I said. “I guess the strangest thing is that Violet was in that particular office.”

  �
�Why’s that?” Shuman asked.

  “It wasn’t her office. It belonged to Constance Addison,” I said.

  “So why were you in there?” he asked.

  “Constance is my supervisor.”

  “Great,” Shuman muttered, and shook his head.

  “That doesn’t mean I killed her,” I pointed out.

  “But it’s another reason to tie you to the crime,” Shuman said.

  “Which is exactly what Madison is looking for. Right?”

  Shuman didn’t say anything. He didn’t have to. I knew he agreed with me. But Detective Madison was his partner. He wasn’t about to say something against him.

  “Anything on the security tapes?” I asked.

  “We’ve got all the footage from the lobby and the parking garage. It’s a big building,” Shuman said. “It’s going to take a while to go through them, see if there’s anybody who doesn’t belong.”

  “We all have to show our I.D. card to the guards in the lobby,” I said.

  “Those things are stolen, duplicated, and falsified all the time,” Shuman said. He shook his head. “We don’t even know if the murderer was a Dempsey Rowland employee. Someone could have come from one of the other companies on another floor.”

  “Murder weapon?” I asked.

  Shuman shrugged. “We’re looking for it.”

  I guess a lot of murder investigations seem kind of hopeless in the beginning. I guess, too, that Shuman was used to it but still didn’t like it.

  “I’ll let you know if I find out anything,” I told him.

  He didn’t jump at my offer.

  “There’s a murderer in that office building, Haley. Watch yourself,” Shuman said, and for a couple of seconds—okay, maybe just one—I thought I saw the same expression he’d used when he looked at Amanda.

  Or maybe that was just wishful thinking on my part.

  CHAPTER 5

  I absolutely had to find that Temptress handbag. It was the only thing that could salvage the crappy week I was having. I’d been strong, stuck to my it’s-a-whole-new-me plan, and hadn’t had a mocha frappuccino in forever, but I didn’t know how much longer I could hold out.

  The realization came to me the next morning as I pulled yet another months’ old business suit from my closet. So far I’d been getting by wearing my old Pike Warner clothes from last fall for my interview and the first day of work at Dempsey Rowland, but I was sick of them. Too many bad memories. Nothing less than some new clothes could lift my spirits—except the Temptress to go along with them, of course.