And Justice For Mall, page 12
‘Someone is following me, stalking me, and you don’t think that’s a crime?’ I asked. ‘I could cite you literally millions of precedents.’
‘Luckily this is not a court of law and I am not a judge,’ Trench answered. ‘I know you have been through some experiences before that have made you understandably anxious, particularly while you are working on criminal cases. And I am obliged to tell you that as a police officer I think you should take whatever legal steps you believe you need in order to feel safer. But I also feel it necessary to tell you that in my professional judgment you are overreacting.’
‘So you refuse to do anything,’ I said. Yes, for the record, I was being unreasonable. Trench was a homicide detective, and nobody involved in what I was doing had been the victim of a homicide or attempted homicide, not for two years at least. But I felt like someone was trying very hard to make a statement and it was not a wish that I have a lovely day. I was just a hair testy.
‘I am not capable of doing anything more at this time, Ms Moss,’ Trench said. ‘I don’t believe you have a credible threat on your hands. I can’t send a cruiser to follow you around wherever you go, and no one, as far as I can tell, has committed any crime at all other than being in the same area as you on a number of occasions. So please tell me again why you called your friendly homicide detective today.’
There was a guy on the side of the road in a business suit carrying a sign that read, ‘Please help. Homeless since LIVE-ACTION MULAN tanked.’ It’s a cruel city. Just to prove how cruel, I didn’t stop and give him a dollar. Did he think that movie truly represented female empowerment? Please. (I didn’t see it, but I’m guessing.)
‘I called just to hear you say that I’m probably not in any danger,’ I sighed. ‘Thank you, Lieutenant.’
‘Feel free to call anytime you feel the least bit anxious, Ms Moss.’
‘You didn’t really mean that, did you?’
‘You are an astute judge of vocal tone.’ At least before Trench hung up he said goodbye.
I made it to Patrick’s house, which I had come to think of as his fortress, without incident. I swiped my card at the security gate and it let me in, which I thought was downright neighborly of it. Naturally, when I got into the house, Angie was already there. But Patrick was nowhere to be seen.
‘He’s in the you-know,’ Angie told me. ‘Which is good because there’s something I have to tell you while Patrick’s not in the room.’
I regarded her for a moment. ‘You know we live in an apartment without him, right?’
‘This won’t wait, and besides, some of us haven’t been staying at the apartment all that much lately, OK? Anyway, listen. Patrick knows you want to buy the teal house but he doesn’t want it and he doesn’t know how to tell you. He wants you to have what you want.’
That was a stunner; Patrick had seemed as enthusiastic about the teal house as I had thought I was, but it was characteristic of him that he’d suppress his preference in favor of mine. That was exactly what I’d been afraid of.
What bothered me was that he’d told Angie what he really wanted and hadn’t felt comfortable enough to tell me.
But before I could even react, Patrick came bounding into the kitchen where we were standing, Angie with a bottle of red wine in her hand, and me holding out the glass for her to pour. We froze and stood there like a tableau. Patrick stopped and looked at us then broke out in laughter.
‘Are you posing for a production still?’
We had to pretend it was a gag for his benefit, and Patrick seemed to buy that ruse, enough so that he let it go as a topic of conversation. I didn’t let on about Angie’s revelation and I went out of my way not to bring up the teal house when we sat down to dinner, no longer attended by Patrick’s cook or butler, who had been snatched away, he said, by Jason Sudeikis ‘now that the Ted Lasso money has kicked in.’ Angie had, in fact, concocted a lasagna, something at which she excels because she is, after all, an Italian-American from central New Jersey.
What you have to understand is that there is virtually nothing Angie can’t do if she decides it’s worth doing. Why she hasn’t cured cancer or solved climate change yet is a mystery. I asked her about it once and she said those things would require years in a laboratory (not to mention science classes), and she didn’t want to be locked away for her best-looking years. One must have priorities.
The usual truths were exchanged about how delicious Angie’s creation had turned out, and then Patrick, as he often did after a day of shooting, wanted to talk about anything except Torn. He loves his work but it’s an exhausting day, even when all that’s happening is a bland table read of the pages they’re planning on filming. He needs to decompress in the evening and I’m glad to help because, frankly, I think Torn is not a worthy showcase for Patrick’s talents. I’m a snob. Sue me. (I’m a lawyer and I’ll win.)
‘They’re shooting mostly the scenes with the criminal tomorrow,’ Patrick said. Yes, I know I just said he doesn’t like to talk about work right after work, but give him a minute. And he does refer to the guest star of the week as the ‘criminal’, because his character(s) will be trying to catch that actor in the show, and it helps his process, or something. Actors are nuts, but some of them are very nice. ‘So if you want me to come along when you’re going to the meeting with Riley, I could be there.’ See?
I had expected this offer because Patrick likes to be the knight on the white horse, when in fact he can just barely ride a horse and has never, to my knowledge, jousted. So I was ready with a response. ‘It’s at a mall food court, Patrick,’ I reminded him. ‘You’re a very recognizable person. You’re going to cause a fuss just by showing up; I’ve seen it happen. And the last thing we need tomorrow is a lot of attention in the place where the cops and I are keeping a close eye on Riley. So thanks for the offer, but why not run your lines for the next day or get Angie to help you take over another area of the entertainment industry?’
He smiled his ‘modest’ smile and crinkled his eyes at me, which was entirely unfair. He knows that expression was one of the first that got my notice (and probably that of many other women, but Patrick doesn’t talk about that). ‘That’s what you really want me to do, love?’
I nodded. ‘That’s what I really want you to do. I appreciate you wanting to help, but you have to let me do this.’
We looked at each other for a long moment until Angie said, ‘Hey guys, I’m right here.’
We all chuckled a bit and Patrick said, ‘All right, Sandy. We’ll play it your way. Patrick McNabb will be nowhere near that food court tomorrow.’
I reached over from my seat and kissed him casually, but he knew it meant something.
I dug back into my lasagna and looked at Angie. She was grinning. That was probably when I should have known something was up.
It must have been the red wine.
TWENTY-TWO
It was as ordinary a shopping mall as you could imagine, assuming you’ve spent any time at all in Southern California and know that nothing here is at all ordinary. The food court where Riley’s meeting with the mysterious texter was being staged probably had hot dogs that I could afford. The stores surrounding it unquestionably were out of my price range. Maybe Patrick could have bought a purse here, but there’s still that societal taboo about men carrying purses and against women having pockets in their clothes. It’s a stumper.
I had picked Riley up at her Aunt Alicia’s condo and driven her to the mall under the pretense of safety but really because I wanted to have an excuse to be in the building when the meeting was taking place. Lieutenant Valdez had not specifically called me up that morning and told me not to come, which I took as a sign that she secretly wanted me there and couldn’t muster up the courage to ask me herself.
‘Are you nervous?’ I asked her. Until then Riley had simply been staring at her phone the way she always did.
‘Of course I’m nervous,’ she said, thus anointing me the stupidest woman in Los Angeles County. ‘I’m going to meet someone who’s pretending to be my dead mother for reasons I can’t begin to think of and maybe called me up to say they’re going to kill me. And you too, in case you forgot.’ She continued to not look up from her phone.
‘I didn’t forget.’
She sighed heavily, once again simmering in the sheer idiocy of everything I might ever do or say. I was getting a preview of what it would be like if I ever had a daughter, and it was making me really sorry about things I probably said to my mother twenty years before. I mean, not so sorry that I’d call her up that night and apologize, because my mother would surely think I had lost my mind and attempt to start commitment proceedings.
‘Look,’ I told her, ‘we can call this off right now if you’re that scared. I’m sure Lieutenant Valdez can find another way to track down this person without putting you at risk.’
This actually prompted Riley to look up from her screen and, as far as my peripheral vision could tell, regard me with a sour look. ‘I thought you said I wasn’t going to be at risk,’ she said.
‘From everything I’ve been told the possibility is very remote,’ I answered. ‘But nothing is foolproof and there are never any guarantees. That’s something I surely don’t have to tell you.’
Back to the phone. ‘Yeah.’
We were pulling up to the mall parking lot. If we were going to abort this operation, we’d have to do it within the next few minutes. ‘So should I call the lieutenant and tell her we don’t want to go ahead with this?’
Not a blink. ‘No.’ That was it.
‘Riley.’ I was turning the car right into the parking lot and heading for the entrance nearest the food court, where I would drop Riley off so she wouldn’t be seen walking in with someone else. ‘I’m just trying to look out for your best interests. You going in unsure of yourself won’t help anybody. Don’t do it if you don’t want to.’
‘Of course I don’t want to!’ she shouted. ‘Who would want to meet someone that creepy? But I want my dad to get out of jail and this is the way to do it, so that’s what I’m gonna do. Now will you please just stop the car so I can get out?’
We were easily six hundred yards from the entrance. ‘What, here?’ I asked.
‘Yes! Here!’ She thrust her hands up to the sides of her head to illustrate just how big an idiot she had to deal with in this car. ‘I don’t want anyone to see me with you!’
I stopped the car without parking it and Riley’s hand was on the door handle the same second. She got out without saying another word and walked in the direction of her destination without ever looking back.
The only thing I could think of doing was driving closer to the entrance, finding a parking space that wouldn’t require a shuttle to get me to the mall, and going inside to stand guard over my client while trying to look casual standing at the entrance to a Shake Shack.
Of course Riley had taken a head start on me, but she was on foot and I had the car. So it was a small surprise when I spotted her exiting a café with nothing more than a roll and a cup of coffee. I guessed she didn’t want to be distracted by the food.
We were ten minutes early for the meeting. I ducked inside the Shake Shack and found a wall away from the entrance to lean against while I called Lieutenant Valdez.
‘We’re already there,’ she said by way of greeting.
‘So am I. How do I know if there’s a threat?’
‘What the hell are you doing here?’ Valdez said. ‘Is that you in the Shake Shack?’
She could see me? How much protection could I offer Riley if a cop could spot me from … wherever they were? How come I couldn’t see her if she could see me? I got into the ordering line just to look more casual.
‘No,’ I answered. ‘I’m not in the Shake Shack. Where are you?’
‘In the Shake Shack.’ She hung up.
My best guess was that Valdez was not in the Shake Shack, based largely on the fact that I could see the whole place from where I was and she was not evident, and that she wouldn’t tell me if she was. I ordered some fries and a chocolate shake (I mean, they named the whole company after the shakes) and moved on because that’s what you do at Shake Shack. But all that time my eyes were scanning the food court outside of this small store and looking for anyone who might be the mystery texter. But how could I tell who that might be? We didn’t even know what gender the caller was, and Riley had heard their voice. We had no evidence the two messages had come from the same person, and a texter can be anybody.
So I just looked over the crowd of upscale shoppers stopping to buy some overpriced fast food. It wasn’t exactly jammed, but this was a pretty ritzy mall and the people who don’t actually live in Beverly Hills probably didn’t want to maneuver their way inside and pay for valet parking (which I had not) just to get to stores with merchandise they couldn’t afford. Silly peasants.
There were the predictable teenagers, far more stylishly dressed than I had ever been before I was at least … OK, more stylishly dressed than I had ever been in my life. So I’m not a fashion plate, but a big deal TV star loves me and … I’m sorry, what was I talking about?
Besides the teens were their moms (although they were certainly not shopping together). These women were pretending to be casual but their lockdown Zoom sweats had given way to expensive yoga pants and their jewelry indicated they weren’t heading for a Pilates class. It was more like they were going to meet Marie Antionette before the unfortunate guillotine episode. (Not much point in meeting Marie after that, frankly.)
None of them appeared to be threatening, but there were two people almost at directly opposite ends of the food court who were causing the hair on the back of my neck to quiver, if not actually stand up.
The first was a man in his sixties, if I was correct in my estimation, dressed a little too nattily even for these surroundings. There were other men in business suits who had clearly come from their jobs, perhaps for lunch hour.
Not this guy. He was carrying an actual walking stick – not a cane, not something that would help him with balance – and an ensemble that might have been fashionable in the 1940s. It was pinstriped, dark blue with white, and double-breasted, possibly to cover the widening expanse of his waist, which wasn’t huge but strained at the buttons. He was also wearing silk socks. I wondered at the fact that he wasn’t wearing spats.
He didn’t make a show of watching the table where Riley was seated, still warily eyeing everyone around her, eyes darting back and forth. But his casual stroll was just a little too casual, if you know what I mean. And even if you don’t. He seemed interested in the food court’s perimeter, probably (in my mind) trying to determine if there were police officers stationed there.
The other person, closer to the Panda Express (because this was a mall and it’s the law), seemed laser-focused on the area where people were seated and eating and not on the places they had bought their food. She – and I was fairly sure it was a she but didn’t want to be presumptuous – was dressed in jeans, denim trucker jacket and a T-shirt with no slogan or artwork on it. Navy blue. Baseball cap, no team insignia, pulled down close to her eyes. And a protective face mask, which was white. Just the kind of outfit to assure the security video would be inconclusive about facial recognition.
No matter how many times I surveyed the area, I saw no one of indeterminate gender in a hoodie, black mask and sunglasses. That was surprising, because I had just assumed my stalker was in some way attached to Riley’s case (which was to say Jack’s case, which was to say the case of Helene’s murder), and not seeing them there was not exactly a disappointment but something more in the area of a surprise. I didn’t know if it was a good or bad surprise.
By now I had eaten all the French fries and was already berating myself for having done so. The milk shake, while lovely, was only half gone because it was thick and sweet and my adult self has limits. In any event, it would be conspicuous to someone watching me (if there were anyone that bored) if I stayed and tried to nurse the shake. Better that I move to a new location, preferably less centrally located, where I might appear to be doing nothing.
There were two minutes, by my iPhone’s estimate, before the exact time the meeting had been set. So I had a tiny bit of time to relocate. Spotting a rare open seat on a bench only sort of facing Riley’s table, I saw a hard-to-find example of an unoccupied place to sit and a casual vantage point that wouldn’t give me away. I decided to move.
While I walked to the bench, I noticed Riley carefully pushing the screen on her phone, hopefully to be ready to dial my number at the first sign of anything going awry. She was playing by the rules I had set and that was good.
I sat down and arranged myself so I wouldn’t have to crane my neck to see Riley, but also wouldn’t look like I was intent on watching her. It’s not easy to project disinterest in something that has your heart pounding, and I’m sure I did a rather bad job of it.
What was somewhat more concerning was that the guy in the Edward G. Robinson suit chose that moment to sit next to me on the bench. That was all I needed. And now I had to wonder if he was indeed the mad texter.
But this close I couldn’t just see the man. I could smell him and his skin had a very familiar scent. I stared at his eyes, which are among the few features a Hollywood makeup artist can’t completely disguise.
‘Patrick?’ I said tentatively.
‘Don’t cause a stir, love,’ he answered in a whisper. ‘That’s why I’m dressed like this. Nobody will recognize me and we can watch quite quietly together.’
‘Are you out of your mind? You specifically told me you wouldn’t come here.’ I was trying not to raise my voice, but this was definitely not a circumstance I had anticipated and my skill set was just now beginning to reassert itself. ‘You should get right back to your office and wait to hear from me.’
The woman in the jeans walked over to Riley’s table and sat down. The mystery texter, and possibly caller.
