Killer Pancake (40 page)

"Goldy!" came Harriet's voice again over the blare of the fire alarm. "Come out now!"

I wasn't in the mood to provide her with a better tar- get. With renewed determination I wobbled in the direction that I hoped would lead to that other door, the one on the left that I now realized led to Nick Gentileschi's office. The space was not pitch-black. Light seeped downward from a distant skylight. I banged into the wall painfully, fell to my knees, and began to grope. I came to the moulding and then the door handle. I heard Harriet come into the darkness behind me. I turned the handle.

The door was locked.

"Goldy! Quit running! You just don't understand - I had to do what I did."

I felt the wall, wondering if Harriet had reloaded. My hand touched metal. Metal steps. I was confused. A metal staircase to what?

"I'm going to find a light!" Harriet warned, close, too close. "I'm going to turn it on!"

I scrambled up the steps. There had to be some exit up there at the top. And then I remembered Frances Markasian sitting on something - a raised box or platform that was just there, on top of the roof. Had it been the Prince & Grogan roof? Oh, please let that be it, I thought desperately. Some exit that they used for repairs. Please, anything. Up, up I climbed.

Thin fluorescent lights blinked once, then came on just as I reached the top step. Oh, Lord. The raised box was fastened with a schoolhouse lock. I glanced down. Harriet had the pistol pointed up at me.

She shouted, "Goldy, come down now!" Then she fired again.

The bullet ricocheted deafeningly off metal. I twisted the lock and pushed vertically with all my strength. The heavy door groaned. I was on the roof, I was out. The fair organizers were in the throes of breaking down the tents.

Nearly everyone was gone. But I thanked the powers that be that Pete's Espresso Bar was the last tent standing. The

King of Advertising wasn't going to be the first to leave, especially when volunteer crew members might want to buy coffee.

I ran awkwardly across the concrete and fell at Pete's ankles.

"Espresso - straight - at least six shots - quick," I panted.

Pete switched on the machine and looked down. Today's T-shirt said I'M LEAN, MEAN, AND FULL OF CAFFEINE. "I swear, Goldy," he said. "I wish every customer was like you."

And then we heard a pistol shot.

It was over.

19

When Tom showed up with an investigative team at the department store, I was being discharged from the hospital across the street. I'd been given charcoal tablets, which I dutifully swallowed. The year before, I'd had an unpleasant encounter with the highly toxic-not aphrodisiac-substance known as Spanish fly, and I knew you had to get your system filtered, and quick. I wasn't going to have to stay in the hospital, the ER doc told me, but he repeatedly remarked how lucky it was I knew the antidote for hemlock and was able to get it so quickly. I couldn't agree more.

Tom scooped me up in his arms and hugged me long and hard. Julian had returned home and found Arch had already returned from Keystone. They'd called Tom on his cell phone and said they were on their way to see Marla. "Sounds good to me,"

I said as I got into Tom's car. He told me they'd found Harriet's body behind the security room door. Self-inflicted wound, but I knew that already. I didn't want to hear the details.

"She couldn't stand the competition," Tom observed. "I guess Claire was just too successful for her to deal with.

After all, Harriet had been Mignon's number-one salesperson for years, and now Claire was about to surpass her effortlessly. Surpass Harriet, that is, unless Harriet could relentlessly charge returns to her competitor's number. And I'll bet Harriet's cash-receipt scam is what Claire was helping Gentileschi with."

"You bet, huh?" I said. "Why don't you bet with something I really want?"

"Oh, woman," he said laughingly as we pulled into Marla's driveway, "you are going to regret those words."

Marla was walking very tentatively down the rock steps by the entryway to her house. Her skin was still sallow. She wore a brightly colored muumuu and her normally frizzy hair was pulled back into pigtails held with sparkling barrettes. The clothes and hair were courtesy of the nurse, no doubt. As she moved haltingly forward, Julian held one of her arms and Arch the other.

Four days ago, while I was preparing food, I'd reflected that beauty was in the eye of the beholder. It was something I'd always said, sort of offhand, the way the mind runs over a clich� without ever really examining its meaning. And yet if what was visually appealing did depend on what the beholder valued, who set the standards? How were the values determined?

In the past five days I'd seen and felt more pain than I cared to contemplate. John Routt had spent the best decades of his life blind. Nick Gentileschi's twisted desire to capture voluptuousness had gotten him killed. The Braithwaites' unhappiness with each other had led both to pursue goals of beauty that were unattainable, or easily destroyed. Reggie Hotchkiss had stolen and plotted and intimidated, trying to sell women expensive products that promised everything and did next to nothing. And Claire had been so gorgeous, so enthusiastic in her selling of overpriced, worthless goods, that it had gotten her killed.

Marla arrived at the bottom of the stone staircase. She let go of Arch and Julian and sank to rest on one of the steps. I rushed over.

"You're here!" she squawked. "I can't believe it." She held out her arms, and I scooted up and sat on a cold stone to embrace her. She murmured, "I feel like hell. And I look worse, I know."

"You look absolutely wonderful," I said, and meant it. "You look like heaven."

The End