Slay Bells and Satchels (Haley Randolph Mystery Series) (2 page)

This boosted my day considerably. Rita was the cashier’s supervisor.

I hate Rita.

I could only hope she had some sort of drug resistant staff infection—call it my little Christmas wish.

“I need you to take over for her,” Jeanette said.

In keeping with my own personal say-no-to-additional-duties policy, I said, “I can’t do that, Jeanette.”

Apparently, Jeanette had her own ignore-employees-who-claim-they-can’t-take-on-additional-duties policy.

“You’ll have to be the elf wrangler today,” she said.

She wanted me to be the—what?

Jeanette nodded toward the rear of the store. “They’re getting ready in the assistant manager’s office.”

There were elves in the store, getting ready for something?

Maybe I should start paying attention in the meetings.

Jeanette glanced at her watch. “We’re opening in eleven minutes. Those girls have to be in costume, hair and makeup done, and in place to greet the customers when the doors open.”

I had no idea what the heck she was talking about, so what could I say but, “Okay.”

“I told Corporate that hiring actresses this year was a bad idea. First day on the job and they’re already running late.” She huffed irritably. “You’ll have to supervise the contest entries and the drawings.”

There was a contest and a drawing?

Jeez, you space-out in a couple of meetings and you miss all kinds of stuff.

Jeanette gestured to the front of the store. Near the entrance on a little platform sat a full-sized, heavy cardboard fireplace, complete with stockings. A decorated Christmas tree sat next to it, alongside a big green hopper. The display was surrounded by red velvet ropes held up by huge candy canes.

Where did that come from?

“Be sure there’s always an elf standing there to greet the customers and have them fill out an entry form,” Jeanette said. “A winner has to be drawn every hour, on the hour, so make sure one of the elves is in place. The rest of them will circulate through the store asking for donations for the children’s charity.”

Jeanette didn’t wait for me to say anything—which was probably wise on her part. She turned to leave, but stopped immediately.

“Thank goodness,” she mumbled. “Here they come.”

Down the aisle came a bunch of young, pretty girls, all of them decked out in elf costumes. I guessed they were all in their early twenties, differing in heights, but not a size larger than a six among them. They wore green shorts and vests over red and white striped tights and long-sleeved tops, and green, pointed-toed elf shoes. Everyone had on a Santa hat, bright red lipstick, and big circles of pink blush on their cheeks.

“Good, we’re all set,” Jeanette said, taking one last look around. “When the customers come in—”

She stopped abruptly and her gaze drilled into me.

“Where’s the giant toy bag?” she demanded.

The giant—what?

“The giant toy bag is supposed to be right next to the fireplace,” Jeanette declared. “It must still be in the stockroom. Get it, Haley. It
has
to be in place when the customers come in.”

I headed for the rear of the store, pausing only long enough to ditch my Santa hat behind a display of T-shirts. The entrance to the stockroom—one of them, anyway—was located beside the customer service booth near the hallway that led to the employee break room, the training room, and the store managers’ offices.

I went through the swinging door into the stockroom. It was as quiet as an evening snowfall back here. Unless the truck team was on duty unloading a big rig filled with new merchandise, nobody came in here often. The rear door by the loading dock was propped open for the janitor. The store’s music track played “Jingle Bells.”

I spotted a red toy bag right away. It was a giant, all right, just as Jeanette had said. It sat on the floor in front of the huge shelving unit that held the store’s entire inventory of Christmas decorations.

Half the contents of one of the shelves was scattered on the floor, which was weird, but I didn’t have time to clean it up. I’d come back and do it later—not that I was all that concerned about maintaining a neat, orderly stockroom, but I never passed up a chance to escape the sales floor.

I grabbed the bag. Yikes! It wouldn’t budge.

I pulled it again using two hands. It moved maybe a couple of inches.

Jeez, this thing weighed a ton.

No way could I carry it to the front of the store, and dragging it would take forever. Even loading it onto one of the long, thin U-boat carts we used to transport merchandise wouldn’t be easy.

There was nothing to do but take out some of the toys.

I pulled open the draw string closure at the top of the bag and—

Oh my God.
Oh my God.

There was an elf inside.

Dead.

“There’s a dead elf in the stockroom,” I said.

Jeanette didn’t look frightened, alarmed, or worried, just annoyed—at me. Like it was my fault, or something.

“I already called 9-1-1,” I said.

She huffed, pulled out her cell phone and started punching buttons calling, I was sure, the corporate office.

We’d been through this before—long story—so we both knew the drill.

The elves—all nine of them—were gathered near the fireplace. A few of them were waving to the customers waiting outside, some were talking to each other, most were checking themselves out in the mirrors by the Sportswear Department.

“Excuse me,” I called, using my there’s-nothing-to-be-alarmed-about voice. The elves quieted down and turned to me, and I immediately launched into my you-can-trust-me voice. “Would you all come with me, please?”

I turned and walked away. With men, I found this always worked. Men followed, no matter what. Not so with women.

I glanced back and saw the elves still clustered by the fireplace, whispering and giving each other questioning looks.

“Just a change of plans,” I said, using my it’s-no-big-deal voice.

It was an outright lie, of course, but what else could I do? I had to get the elves sequestered in the training room so the homicide detectives could question them.

I motioned for them to follow and they did. I led them to the training room in the back of the store.

“The store manager will be here in a few minutes,” I told them.

I intended to make my escape and let Jeanette break the news—I’m sure that was covered in her Holt’s management training course, well, pretty sure—so I headed for the door.

“Somebody’s missing,” an elf called.

I turned back and saw one of the girls doing a head count.

“There’re only nine of us,” she said. “Someone’s not here.”

Miss Helpful. Great. Thank you so much.

“It’s McKenna,” someone else said. “McKenna’s not here.”

“She’s probably setting up interviews for her personal assistant,” someone else said, in a snarky voice.

A few of the girls laughed.

Someone else said, “Or maybe she’s shopping for her beach condo.”

“Bitch,” another girl murmured.

Jeanette appeared. No way did I want to be around when she broke the news to the girls. I closed the door and headed for the break room.

The chocolate in the vending machines called to me—yes, actually called. It’s never too early in the day to have a Snickers bar, and since I’d just discovered a dead body at my crappier-than-crappy part-time job, I saw no reason not to heed its sirens song.

Still, maybe it could wait a couple of minutes.

I’d called 9-1-1 from the stockroom as soon as I’d found the dead elf in the toy bag—we’re not supposed to keep our cell phones on us during duty hours, but we’re not supposed to keep a dead elf in the stockroom either. I knew the cops, detectives, and crime scene investigators would show up soon. I decided to take another look around before they got there.

I don’t have professional training, of course, but I do have mad Scooby Doo skills. Besides, I’d already been in there once, so I figured I couldn’t screw up the crime scene if I went back.

I glanced up and down the hallway, saw that no one was around, and slipped into the stockroom.

The giant toy bag lay just where I left it. It creeped me out looking at it.

Scattered across the floor and piled up nearby were the Christmas decorations that had been knocked off the shelving unit. Some of the glass ornaments were broken. Yards of green garland and dozens of spools of red ribbon were jumbled in with a mound of wooden nutcrackers, the ones that look like soldiers with gaping mouths.

Those things creep me out, too.

I figured that McKenna—I guess she was the victim since the other elves had said she was missing from the training room—had struggled with her attacker and knocked everything onto the floor.

Her assailant must have emptied the contents of the giant toy bag and stuffed her inside, after the deed was done. Small household and kitchen appliances, electric razors and toothbrushes, holiday placemat and napkins sets—apparently, Holt’s had planned to give away “toys” to all ages—were mixed with teddy bears, coloring books and crayons, and wooden puzzles, and dumped on top of the Christmas decorations.

Obviously, McKenna’s death wasn’t an accident or suicide—you don’t need mad skills to know she hadn’t offed herself, then crawled into the giant toy bag to die—and that meant she’d been murdered.

I got a really creepy feeling.

I looked around. The loading bay doors were still closed. The back door I’d thought the janitor had opened was still open. No sign of the janitor.

I spotted a puddle of blood seeping from under a pile of large, wooden candy canes.

Yuck. I wanted out of there.

I headed for the door.

It burst open in front of me.

Homicide detectives Madison and Shuman walked in.

Oh, crap.

“Leaving the scene of the crime, I see, Miss Randolph,” Detective Madison said, looking smug. “Seems I’m getting an early Christmas present this year.”

Detective Madison hated me. But that’s okay. I hated him, too.

He was way overdue for retirement, and looked it. His comb-over had thinned even more and his jowls hung lower than the last time I saw him. He had a round belly that definitely shook when he laughed like a bowl full of jelly—not that he ever laughed, around me, anyway. Madison had made it his mission to find me guilty of
something
.

Detective Shuman didn’t hate me. I didn’t hate him, either.

He was thirtyish, with brown hair, and kind of handsome—not that I ever noticed, of course, since I have an official boyfriend. Shuman had an official girlfriend that he absolutely adored. So, officially, there was nothing going on between Shuman and me. Officially.

“I’ll leave you two to your work,” I said, and skirted around the detectives.

Madison blocked my path.

“Oh, no, let’s get to the good stuff, like opening the biggest present first on Christmas morning,” he said, rubbing his palms together. “You were in charge of the actresses who were portraying elves here today, weren’t you?”

I guess he’d already talked to Jeanette.

“Well, yes,” I said. “But that only happened this morning, just a short while ago, really.”

“So it was a crime of opportunity,” Madison said. “Is that what you’re telling me, Miss Randolph?”

“No,” I insisted.

“So what sort of crime was it?” he asked, leaning closer.

I glanced at Shuman. He looked worried.

Not good.

“I had nothing to do with McKenna’s murder,” I said.

Madison snapped to attention, as if I’d just confessed to something.

“So you knew the victim,” he declared.

“No, I just heard the other girls talking about her,” I told him.

He went on as if I hadn’t spoken.

“And you knew she’d been
murdered
,” he declared.

Well, I guess he had me on that.

“You supposedly
found
the body,” Madison went on. “You
found
her when you were
alone
in the stockroom. Isn’t that right, Miss Randolph?”

Okay, he had me on that, too.

But he was making it sound as if I’d actually done something wrong.

“I didn’t kill her,” I insisted.

Detective Madison narrowed his beady little eyes at me until they almost disappeared, and leaned closer.

“We’ll find out,” he said. Madison jerked his thumb toward the door. “You can go now.”

I was glad to leave, but a little miffed at being dismissed. Still, I didn’t want to hang around and see McKenna’s body when the investigators from the coroner’s office showed up and pulled her out of the bag.

I brushed past the detectives.

“Don’t leave town, Miss Randolph,” Detective Madison called.

I pushed through the stockroom door without answering.

I took a lap through the store just to burn off the negative energy Detective Madison had left me with. I was supposed to work in the Domestics Department today, but no way could I face that right now.

The aisles were crowded with shoppers, a couple of babies were crying, some lady was yelling at her husband—why on earth do women take their husbands shopping with them?—and a group of teenage girls was swarming the lingerie department like locusts in a Kansas wheat field.

Everybody seemed to be in the Christmas spirit—spending-wise, at least. Lots of people had full carts, others juggled items in their arms. I spotted several customers in Santa costumes.

Apparently, public humiliation wasn’t too high a price for some people to pay when a huge discount was dangled in front of them.

Nobody, it seemed, knew that an elf had been murdered in the stockroom. Hopefully, it wouldn’t make the news. Holt’s had a good PR department and knew how to handle this sort of thing—believe me, I know. I’d heard Ty talking to them often enough during one of our supposed dates.

At the front of the store I spotted Sandy standing beside the fake fireplace wearing a Holt’s-issued Santa hat. Sandy was another of my Holt’s BFFs. She was in her early twenties, a white girl with red hair that she usually wore in a ponytail. Sandy was super nice—so nice that when her boyfriend—he’s a tattoo artist she met on the Internet—treated her like crap—which was almost all the time—she didn’t even notice.