An Uplifting Murder (37 page)

A bored security guard, who was almost as skinny as the display rack, leaned against a nearby pillar. He was staring off into space.

“Did you see the price tags?” Josie asked. “Three thousand dollars each.”

“Move quick,” Alyce muttered. “Target at two o’clock.”

Josie and Alyce shifted to a rack of black pencil skirts. “I’d get more use out of this skirt,” Josie said, holding one up as a shield to hide herself from Victoria. “I have a lot of blouses I could wear with it.”

She peered over the skirt top at Victoria, who was carrying three black dresses. She had stopped to examine the expensive sequined sheath, then moved on. When Victoria left the rack, only two dresses remained. The security guard was still lost in his own world.

Josie slipped back to count the sequined sheaths. “She took the size zero. No way she could wear that size.”

“But she could sell it to her skinny friends,” Alyce said.

Victoria approached a saleswoman, who was talking on her cell phone. “Can I try on these three dresses?” she asked.

The saleswoman nodded absently and pointed toward the dressing room. She didn’t stop her conversation or count the dresses.

“If I was mystery-shopping this store, that saleswoman would get black marks,” Josie said. “She’s a shoplifter’s delight. Victoria has four dresses. The saleswoman should take the dresses from the customer, count them, unlock the dressing room door, and show her inside. These dressing room doors aren’t even locked.”

“We’ll have to try on some clothes to watch Victoria,” Alyce said. She handed Josie the black skirt.

Josie waved to the saleswoman, who was still on the phone. She held up the skirt. The saleswoman nodded at her, and Josie and Alyce went into the dressing room area and opened the beige louvered door to a double room.

Victoria was in the dressing room next door. They could see her feet under the partition.

Josie and Alyce pretended to discuss the skirt.

“I think it’s a little tight at the hips,” Josie said. “It’s not fair. I’ve been dieting for weeks. Do my hips look fat?”

“Definitely not,” Alyce said.

“I need a bigger size,” Josie said.

Josie and Alyce continued their pretend conversation until they heard Victoria’s dressing room door open. Josie opened her own door and saw Victoria slowly walk out of the dressing area. Josie nipped inside Victoria’s dressing room, then reported back to Alyce. “She left three dresses hanging on the hook,” she said. “The black sequined number is missing.”

Alyce surveyed the department. The saleswoman was still on the phone.

“Victoria didn’t buy that dress,” Alyce said. “She can’t be wearing it. The sequined dress is too bulky to fit inside a scarf bag. How is she stealing it?”

“I don’t know, but she is,” Josie said. She watched Victoria move slowly through the better-dresses department. Her long, loping gait had become an awkward lumber.

Then Josie knew where the dress was hidden. She couldn’t let the store personnel—or Victoria—see her sound the alarm. She crouched under a clothes rack and screamed, “Stop! Security! Stop the woman in the black coat. The one with the hat! She has a stolen dress.”

Josie stood up. The guard at the top of the escalator was now fully awake. He saw Victoria and tried to block her from getting on the escalator. Victoria was moving faster now, walking with a graceless waddle, like a heavily pregnant woman.

The skinny security guard tried to stop Victoria, but she shoved him into a frail silver-haired woman with a mass of shopping bags. Mrs. Silver fell into a rack of sheer evening blouses. The guard landed on top of her. The woman, the guard, and the clothes rack tumbled down together.

“My arm!” Mrs. Silver screamed.

The guard, tangled in a mass of chiffon and hangers, reached for his walkie-talkie. Victoria had safely made it to the escalator. She stepped carefully around two chattering shoppers, then rode serenely down the long moving stairs.

“Oh, no,” Josie said. “She’s not getting away this time.”

She shoved past the talkative shoppers and reached for Victoria, who was nearly at the end of the escalator. Josie’s high heel caught in the moving stairs and she landed on top of Victoria in a flying tackle.

Victoria fell headfirst onto the hard floor. “Oof!” she said as the breath was knocked out of her. She started to sit up. Josie walloped her with her purse and sat on top of her.

The security guard had freed himself from the rack of blouses. He radioed for help for the silver-haired shopper, then ran down the escalator.

“Ma’am, ma’am, are you okay?” he asked Josie.

“I’m fine,” Josie said. “Congratulations. You’ve caught yourself a shoplifter.”

“I don’t know what you mean.” The guard looked confused.

Josie sat up and pointed to the dazed Victoria, sprawled on the hard floor. Her hat had flown off and her long blond braid had uncoiled like a braided snake. Her coat had slid up. The expensive black sequined dress glittered between her legs like a demonic afterbirth.

“This woman here,” Josie said. “On the floor. She was trying to walk out with a three-thousand-dollar dress between her knees. You caught her.”

Chapter 40

“You caught Victoria fair and square,” Officer Doris Ann Norris said. Mrs. Mueller peered out her bedroom window at the spectacle of a police officer on Josie’s doorstep again.

“I didn’t catch her,” Josie said. “Bluestone’s security guard did. She was trying to sneak out with an expensive dress. The guard saw her acting suspiciously and called the Venetia Park police.”

“Yeah, right,” Officer Norris said. “While we’re discussing suspicious behavior, you just happened to be shopping in the store.”

“I’m a mystery shopper,” Josie said.

Josie didn’t feel like dancing to celebrate Victoria’s dramatic capture. She was glad the shape-shifting shoplifter had been caught, but she was bruised by the fall down the escalator.

“Well, this is no mystery,” Officer Norris said. “The store caught her with a dress that cost three thousand bucks. Victoria can’t claim she wanted to buy it. Not when she was waddling around with it shoved between her legs. She’s sure no size zero. I can’t believe zero is a dress size.”

“It is, if you’re a Chihuahua,” Josie said. “Do you want to come in for coffee? You’ll freeze on the porch.”

“I’ll take a cup for the sake of your neighbor,” Officer Norris said. “She’s going to fall out of her bedroom window watching me on your porch.”

“Good,” Josie said.

Officer Norris followed Josie into the warm kitchen. Josie poured coffee and popped two of Amelia’s cookies on a plate.

“You don’t have to do that,” Norris said. But she ate the cookies.

“It’s a thank-you,” Josie said. “You believed me when I said Victoria had stolen those clothes.”

“I never said I didn’t believe you,” Norris said. “I said there wasn’t any proof she’d been shoplifting. The prosecuting attorney couldn’t make a case just because someone has a roomful of clothes with tags on them. I tried to convince her. She wouldn’t go for an arrest.”

“Victoria wouldn’t be in jail now if you hadn’t made notes on all those clothes in her living room,” Josie said.

“The property-crimes detectives are adding up the loot. So far, the total is thirty-five sweaters costing up to five hundred dollars a pop, forty dresses—not one less than five hundred dollars—and assorted pricey skirts and slacks. All the clothes still had the tags on, which makes it easier for us. The stores have identified the merchandise as stolen—and they’re still finding more.”

Josie raised an eyebrow. “She had expensive taste.”

“It’s definitely going to cost her,” Officer Norris said. “Looks like Victoria stole more than twenty-five thousand dollars. That makes her shoplifting sprees a Class B felony. Plus, when she got caught with that three-thousand-dollar dress at the store and tried to run, Victoria pushed a woman into a rack of clothes and broke her arm. She caused a bodily injury during the commission of a crime, and that will increase Victoria’s penalties. Oh, and the bigger stores have her on video, too. Juries like videotape. She’ll need a good lawyer to avoid fifteen to twenty years in jail.”

Josie didn’t bother hiding her satisfaction. Her car was still a frozen lump. Her knees ached from the fall. Her pride was hurt. But she’d made sure Victoria was caught and jailed, nice and legal.

“Is your car still in cold storage?” Officer Norris asked.

“Yes,” Josie said. “And it will stay there. More snow is expected this weekend.”

“We can charge Victoria with vandalism for the ice on your car,” Officer Norris said.

“What about murder?” Josie asked.

“Sorry, homicide didn’t find any connection between Victoria and the victim’s death. There is no evidence. We couldn’t even find that black-and-white scarf you said she had. Victoria is a shoplifter, not a killer. She’ll be locked up a long time.”

“Maybe my car will be thawed out by the time she’s free,” Josie said. “I want her charged with murder, not vandalism.”

“Not gonna happen. Look, Josie, I chewed you out for meddling in a police investigation.” Officer Norris gave Josie a stern stare. “You deserved it. You don’t want to hear this, but your friend Laura Ferguson is flat-out guilty. She killed that woman. She’s in jail and she should be. The Venetia Park detectives arrested the right person. Laura Ferguson had motive, means, and opportunity.”

“But so did Victoria,” Josie said.

“How do you know that?” Officer Norris gave Josie that laser stare.

“I—she—she was in the hospital when Frankie worked there. Victoria was hurt in a hit-and-run accident. It was in the paper, if you don’t believe me. Frankie liked to torment people with their secrets. She could have figured out that Victoria was a shoplifter.”

“Did it say that in the paper, too?” Officer Norris said.

Josie shook her head.

“I don’t approve of your stupid amateur sleuthing,” Officer Norris said. “If I catch you doing it again, I’ll run you in. Leave the investigating to the pros. You have a daughter to worry about. Laura Ferguson is guilty. Let it go.”

But Josie couldn’t. She knew Laura was innocent. She knew her friend needed to be with her ailing daughter. Josie had narrowed her investigation down to the two lingerie saleswomen, Rosa and Trish. Both had had deadly reasons to hate Frankie.

Josie needed to know which woman was guilty.

She still had to talk to one more person connected to the killing—the heroic Cody John Wayne. He had been in Desiree Lingerie the day Frankie was murdered. He was the director of security at Sale Away. It was his job to notice people and their actions. Cody was a trained observer. Josie had to see Cody today. He might know something that would free Laura.

She started out the door for Sale Away and remembered her car was frozen. She couldn’t drive there. She pictured the nearly deserted Sale Away parking lot, feral dogs roaming the bleak, potholed asphalt. She couldn’t ask her mother to drive. It would be stupid to go alone. Ted could take her. His bodyguard duty ended with Victoria’s arrest.

Josie missed him. She liked their cozy domestic mornings. Mentally congratulating herself on her wise decision, Josie called Ted’s cell phone. She was relieved there were no background barks, meows, or growls.

“No patient emergencies this morning?” Josie asked him.

“I’m at home,” Ted said. “Chris told me to take the day off. Are you free? Want to go somewhere fun?”

“I still don’t have a car,” Josie said. “I’d like to go somewhere, but a trip to Sale Away won’t be fun. I don’t want to walk through that parking lot alone with those dog packs. If you go with me, I’ll take you to lunch afterward. My treat.”