Part 17 (1/2)

The bell over the front door jangled, and Karen turned away with a grin. ”You got it.” She was almost out of the kitchen when she turned back. ”If you need something to do, why don't you run over to Walgreens and pick up the stuff on that list?” she said with a nod toward a sheet of paper she'd tacked to the bulletin board. ”It'll save us time later.”

I knew she was just trying to get rid of me, but maybe she was right. My mood wasn't doing anyone any good. I pulled the list from the bulletin board and scanned it quickly. Apparently, we were out of almost everything from paper towels to ibuprofen. I grabbed my keys and the company checkbook from the office and drove the half block to the drugstore so I wouldn't have to haul the supplies back to Divinity on foot.

Inside the store, I managed to get the cart with the wobbly wheel, and my mood dropped even lower. I could have traded it for another cart, but I was so consumed by self-pity at that point, I couldn't even make myself do that. Battling the cart's determined efforts to circle to the right, I loaded the basket with the items on Karen's list and added a few of my own. By the time I'd gone around the store a couple of times looking for everything, my head had begun to pound to the rhythmic whap-whap-whap of the wheel as it hit the metal casing surrounding it.

Finally, I turned toward the cash register, where a young blonde of about eighteen popped her gum and waited for something to do. Britnee, according to her name tag, barely acknowledged my presence, which was fine with me. I wasn't in the mood for idle chitchat anyway. Behind her, a young man worked a feather duster across a row of film with as much enthusiasm as Britnee showed over helping me.

When Britnee was almost finished ringing up my purchases, the young man turned his head and said, ”Hey, Brit. Do you know if the schedule for next week is up yet?”

Britnee popped her gum and shook her head. ”I don't think so, Chase. She said she might not even do it today.”

The young man muttered something under his breath, and Britnee rolled her eyes in response. ”I know. I know. But don't tell me. Talk to her.” She hit the Total b.u.t.ton and flashed a bored glance at me. ”Comes to ninety-five ninety-eight.”

I said a silent prayer of thanks for Liberty's enthusiastic att.i.tude and pulled out the checkbook. As I began to fill out the check, the fog that had been hovering around my head all day lifted, and I realized I was standing in the middle of a potential gold mine of information.

Tossing off a friendly smile, I asked, ”Do you mind if I ask the two of you a couple of questions?”

Britnee flicked another couldn't-care-less look in my direction. ”About what?”

”About last Monday night. Were you working that night?”

A veil of thin blonde hair fell when Britnee moved her head. She hooked a finger through it and tucked it behind her ear in a movement so automatic, I'm sure she didn't even know she'd done it. ”I can't talk to you. My boss has a fit if we stop working to talk to anybody.”

Which might explain her stellar people skills. I glanced around quickly, saw no one standing in line behind me, and pulled handful of items from the nearby bargain bin. Still trying to look friendly, I dropped them onto her conveyer belt. ”There, now you have to talk to me. Just ring them up slowly, and tell me if you were working last Monday night.”

Chase looked up from his dusting. ”The night they found the dead guy in the parking lot? We were both here.”

Britnee scanned a rubber ball with colorful spikes sticking out all over it and shuddered at the memory. The lock of hair escaped from behind her ear and fell down in front of her face again. ”Was that not the freakiest thing ever?” she asked, hooking and tucking without missing a beat.

For the sake of argument, I agreed that it was, indeed, the freakiest thing ever. ”You know, I'm the one who found the body. At least, my dog did. Did either of you see it happen?”

”The murder?” Britnee looked almost impressed by my claim to fame as she scanned a closeout can of Pringles and slid it into a bag. ”I didn't see a thing, thank G.o.d. Did you?” She glanced longingly at Chase, as if she could feel a protective aura emanating from his scrawny body.

Chase ran his feather duster across a rack of magazines and puffed up a bit, no doubt trying to look tough. ”I didn't actually see it happen, but I came close. I took a bunch of boxes out to the Dumpster about five minutes before they found the guy's body.”

Britnee scanned the last item on her belt, but I still had questions. I held up a finger in a signal for her to wait and went back to the bargain bin. I loaded up again, checking price tags quickly to make sure I wasn't going to empty the bank account for a chance to hear what these two had to say.

”Did you see anything unusual?” I asked as I unloaded two decks of cards, a canister of tennis b.a.l.l.s with one missing, a couple of kitchen towels, and a bubble pack of flavored lip gloss.

I could tell that Chase wanted to say yes, but he shook his head reluctantly. ”No. I mean, there were cars coming and going, you know? And there were people outside. But I didn't see the dead guy at all.”

”That's because he was in here,” Britnee said, startling us both.

”He came inside?” I asked.

She nodded solemnly and went through the motions of tucking and looping that errant lock of hair behind her ear once more. ”I ought to know. I'm the one who rang him up.”

Chase gazed at her with new admiration, as if she'd survived a brush with death in the last twenty seconds, and he'd been there to witness the miracle. ”What did he buy?”

”A pack of gum, I think. I don't think he actually wanted it. He was just trying to get away from the guy who was bugging him.”

I was finding Britnee more fascinating by the moment. ”What guy?”

”The guy he was trying to get away from.” Her tone suggested that I needed to pay better attention.

”Right. This is the first I've heard of that,” I said. ”Do the police know?”

Britnee shrugged lazily. ”I guess so.”

”You don't know? Does that mean you haven't told them?”

She lifted her gaze to mine. ”I didn't talk to them, Sissy did. I don't know what she told them.”

”Who's Sissy?”

”The night manager,” Chase explained. ”If you ask me, she's gone a little nuts since she got her promotion.”

I knew the type. There's one in nearly every workplace. ”So you didn't actually talk to the police yourself?” I asked Britnee.

”No, Sissy said she had to do it because she's the manager. I told her that was stupid. I mean, she didn't see anything, but she didn't care. She wanted to look important.”

I sincerely hoped Sissy was about twelve; otherwise, I'd be frightened by the stupidity of that decision. ”Did you contact the police later and tell them what you knew?”

Britnee shook her head. ”No. I don't want to lose my job.”

”And Sissy would fire her,” Chase said. ”She's like that.”

They were so young, it was almost painful. ”She can't fire you for talking to the police,” I a.s.sured them. ”There are laws.”

Chase laughed through his nose. ”Yeah? Well, tell Sissy that. But don't expect it to do any good. She'll just do whatever she wants.”

I could have enlightened them on a few facts about employment law, but we were losing focus. ”Did you see the other man's face? What did he look like?”

Britnee swiped the three-pack of fruity lip gloss across the scanner and pulled a flyer from a stack at the end of the counter. She pushed the flyer toward me. I picked it up and found Quentin Ingersol beaming up at me from a grainy photograph. My head shot up, and my breath caught. ”He looked like this guy?”

”No, he was that guy.”

My heart thumped with excitement. ”Are you sure?”

Britnee secured the wayward lock of hair behind her ear again and nodded. ”Sure I'm sure. That guy's in the store at least twice a week. I know who he is.”

”But you haven't told the police that he was talking to the dead guy right before the murder?”

”No.” Duh! Britnee shook her head and frowned as if she was losing patience with me. ”It's not like he killed the guy. I mean, he's one of our regulars. He's in here all the time.” She glanced at the empty conveyer belt and glanced back at me. ”Is that it?”

She wasn't the only one losing patience, but I tried to hang on to mine with both hands. I pulled two magazines and a container of breath mints from the rack. ”Did you happen to hear anything they said?”